Eoiins  ftennell 


OUR  HOUSE  AND  THE  PEOPLE  IN  IT.  i2mo, 
$1.2$  net.  Postage  extra. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND("Hans  Breitmann"). 
Fully  illustrated,  2  vols.,  crown  8vo,  $5.00  net.  Post- 
age, 31  cents. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


Our  House 

And  the  People  in  It 


.  0?  C1LIF.  LIBBABY,  LOS  1HGELES 


Our  House 

And  the  People  in  It 

BY 

Elizabeth  Robins  Pennell 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MlFFLIN  COMPANY 

(3TbE  fiitiersibc  press 
1910 


COPYRIGHT,   1910,   BY   ELIZABETH   ROBINS   PENNELL 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October  igio 


Augustine 


2131989 


Contents 

Introduction  ix 

I.   'Enrietter  i 

II.    'Trimmer  33 

III.  Louise  79 

IV.  Our  Charwomen  119 
V.    Clementine  1 53 

VI.    'The  Old  Housekeeper  201 

VII.    'The  New  Housekeeper  227 

VIII.    Our  Beggars  251 

IX.    The  Tenants  289 

X.    'Htf  Quarter  339 


The  greater  number  of  the  following  chapters  appeared  as  articles 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the  Pall  Mall  Magazine,  and  Lippincotfs. 
To  the  courtesy  of  the  editors  and  publishers  of  these  journals  I  am 
indebted  for  the  permission  to  reprint  them  in  their  present  form. 


Introduction 

OUR  finding  Our  House  was  the  merest 
chance.  J.  and  I  had  been  hunting  for  it  dur- 
ing weeks  and  months,  from  Chelsea  to 
Blackfriars,  when  one  day  on  the  way  to  take 
a  train  on  the  Underground  we  saw  the  notice 
"To  Let"  in  windows  just  where  they  ought 
to  have  been,  —  high  above  the  Embankment 
and  the  River,  —  and  we  knew  at  a  glance 
that  we  should  be  glad  to  spend  the  rest  of  our 
lives  looking  out  of  them.  But  something  de- 
pended on  the  house  we  looked  out  from,  and, 
while  our  train  went  without  us,  we  hurried 
to  discover  it.  We  were  in  luck.  It  was  all 
that  we  could  have  asked:  as  simple  in  archi- 
tecture, its  bricks  as  time- stained,  as  the 
courts  of  the  Temple  or  Gray's  Inn.  The  front 
door  opened  into  a  hall  twisted  with  age,  the 
roof  supplanted  by  carved  corbels,  the  upper 
part  of  another  door  at  its  far  end  filled  with 
bull's-eye  glass,  while  three  flights  of  time- 
worn,  white  stone  stairs  led  to  the  windows 

ix 


Introduction 

with,  behind  them,  a  flat  called  Chambers,  as  if 
we  were  really  in  the  Temple,  and  decorated  by 
Adam,  as  if  to  bring  Our  House  into  harmony 
with  the  younger  houses  around  it.  For  Our 
House  it  became  on  that  very  day,  now  years 
ago.  Our  House  it  has  been  ever  since,  and  I 
hope  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  our  ad- 
ventures in  it. 


I 

'  Enrietter 


Our  House  and  the 
People  in  It 


'ENRIETTER 


SINCE  my  experience  with  'Enrietter,  the 
pages  of  Zola  and  the  De  Goncourts  have 
seemed  a  much  more  comfortable  place  for 
"human  documents"  and  "realism"  than  the 
family  circle.  Her  adventures  in  our  London 
chambers  make  a  thrilling  story,  but  I  could 
have  dispensed  with  the  privilege  of  enjoying 
the  thrill.  When  your  own  house  becomes  the 
scene  of  the  story  you  cannot  help  taking  a 
part  in  it  yourself,  and  the  story  of  'Enrietter 
was  not  precisely  one  in  which  I  should  have 
wanted  to  figure  had  it  been  a  question  of 
choice. 

It  all  came  of  believing  that  I  could  live  as 
I  pleased  in  England,  and  not  pay  the  penalty. 

3 


Our  House 

An  Englishman's  house  is  his  castle  only  when 
it  is  run  on  the  approved  lines,  and  the  for- 
eigner in  the  country  need  not  hope  for  the 
freedom  denied  to  the  native.  I  had  set  out 
to  engage  the  wrong  sort  of  servant  in  the 
wrong  sort  of  way,  and  the  result  was  — 
'Enrietter.  I  had  never  engaged  any  sort  of 
servant  anywhere  before,  I  did  not  much  like 
the  prospect  at  the  start,  and  my  first  attempts 
in  Registry  Offices,  those  bulwarks  of  British 
conservatism,  made  rne  like  it  still  less.  That 
was  why,  when  the  landlady  of  the  little  Cra- 
ven Street  hotel,  where  we  waited  while  the 
British  Workman  took  his  ease  in  our  cham- 
bers, offered  me  'Enrietter,  I  was  prepared 
to  accept  her  on  the  spot,  had  not  the  land- 
lady, in  self-defence,  stipulated  for  the  custom- 
ary formalities  of  an  interview  and  references. 
The  interview,  in  the  dingy  back  parlour  of 
the  hotel,  was  not  half  so  unpleasant  an  ordeal 
as  I  had  expected.  Naturally,  I  do  not  insist 
upon  good  looks  in  a  servant,  but  I  like  her 
none  the  less  for  having  them,  and  a  costume 
in  the  fashion  of  Whitechapel  could  not  dis- 
guise the  fact  that  'Enrietter  was  an  uncom- 

4 


'Enrietter 

monly  good-looking  young  woman;  not  in  the 
buxom,  red-cheeked  way  that  my  old  reading 
of  Miss  Mitford  made  me  believe  as  insepa- 
rable from  an  English  maid  as  a  pigtail  from 
a  Chinaman,  nor  yet  in  the  anaemic  way  I  have 
since  learned  for  myself  to  be  characteristic  of 
the  type.  She  was  pale,  but  her  pallor  was  of  the 
kind  more  often  found  south  of  the  Alps  and 
the  Pyrenees.  Her  eyes  were  large  and  blue, 
and  she  had  a  pretty  trick  of  dropping  them 
under  her  long  lashes;  her  hair  was  black  and 
crisp;  her  smile  was  a  recommendation.  And, 
apparently,  she  had  all  the  practical  virtues 
that  could  make  up  for  her  abominable  cock- 
ney accent  and  for  the  name  of  'Enrietter,  by 
which  she  introduced  herself.  She  did  not 
mind  at  all  coming  to  me  as  "general,"  though 
she  had  answered  the  landlady's  advertisement 
for  parlour  maid.  She  was  not  eager  to  make 
any  bargain  as  to  what  her  work  was,  and  was 
not,  to  be.  Indeed,  her  whole  attitude  would 
have  been  nothing  short  of  a  scandal  to  the 
right  sort  of  servant.  And  she  was  willing  with 
a  servility  that  would  have  offended  my  Ameri- 
can notions  had  it  been  a  shade  less  useful. 

5 


Our  House 

As  for  her  references,  it  was  in  keeping  with 
everything  else  that  she  should  have  made  the 
getting  them  so  easy.  She  sent  me  no  farther 
than  to  another  little  private  hotel  in  another 
little  street  leading  from  the  Strand  to  the 
river,  within  ten  minutes'  walk.  It  was  kept 
by  two  elderly  maiden  ladies  who  received  me 
with  the  usual  incivility  of  the  British  hotel- 
keeper,  until  they  discovered  that  I  had  come 
not  for  lodging  and  food,  which  they  would 
have  looked  upon  as  an  insult,  but  merely  for 
a  servant's  character.  They  unbent  still  fur- 
ther at  'Enrietter's  name,  and  were  roused 
to  an  actual  show  of  interest.  They  praised 
her  cooking,  her  coffee,  her  quickness,  her  tal- 
ent for  hard  work.  But  —  and  then  they  hesi- 
tated and  I  was  lost,  for  nothing  embarrasses 
me  more  than  the  Englishwoman's  embar- 
rassed silence.  They  did  manage  to  blurt 
out  that  'Enrietter  was  not  tidy,  which  I  re- 
gretted. I  am  not  tidy  myself,  neither  is  J., 
and  I  have  always  thought  it  important  that 
at  least  one  person  in  a  household  should  have 
some  sense  of  order.  But  then  they  also  told 
me  that  'Enrietter  had  frequently  been  called 

6 


'Enrietter 

upon  to  cook  eighteen  or  twenty  breakfasts 
of  a  morning,  and  lunches  and  dinners  in  pro- 
portion, and  it  struck  me  there  might  not  have 
been  much  time  left  for  her  to  be  tidy  in.  After 
this,  there  was  a  fresh  access  of  embarrassment 
so  prolonged  that  I  could  not  in  decency  sit 
it  out,  though  I  would  have  liked  to  make  sure 
that  it  was  due  to  their  own  difficulty  with 
speech,  and  not  to  unspeakable  depravity  in 
'Enrietter.  However,  it  saves  trouble  to  be- 
lieve the  best,  when  to  believe  the  worst  is  to 
add  to  one's  anxieties,  and  as  soon  as  I  got 
home  I  wrote  and  engaged  'Enrietter  and 
cheerfully  left  the  rest  to  Fate. 

There  was  nothing  to  regret  for  a  fortnight. 
Fate  seemed  on  my  side,  and  during  two  bliss- 
ful weeks  'Enrietter  proved  herself  a  paragon 
among  "generals."  She  was  prettier  in  her 
little  white  cap  than  in  her  big  feathered  hat, 
and  her  smile  was  never  soured  by  'the  fric- 
tion of  daily  life.  Her  powers  as  a  cook  had 
not  been  over-estimated;  the  excellence  of  her 
coffee  had  been  undervalued;  for  her  quick- 
ness and  readiness  to  work,  the  elderly  maiden 
ladies  had  found  too  feeble  a  word.  There 

7. 


Our  House 

was  n't  anything  troublesome  she  would  n't 
and  did  n't  do,  even  to  providing  me  with 
ideas  when  I  had  n't  any  and  the  butcher's, 
or  greengrocer's,  boy  waited.  And  it  was  the 
more  to  her  credit  because  our  chambers  were 
in  a  chaotic  condition  that  would  have  fright- 
ened away  a  whole  staff  of  the  right  sort  of 
servants.  We  had  just  moved  in,  and  the  place 
was  but  half  furnished.  The  British  Workman 
still  lingered,  as  I  began  to  believe  he  always 
would,  —  there  were  times,  indeed,  when  I 
was  half  persuaded  we  had  taken  our  cham- 
bers solely  to  provide  him  a  shelter  in  the  day- 
time. My  kitchen  utensils  were  of  the  fewest. 
My  china  was  still  in  the  factory  in  France 
where  they  made  it,  and  I  was  eating  off  bor- 
rowed plates  and  drinking  out  of  borrowed 
cups.  I  had  as  yet  next  to  no  house-linen  to 
speak  of.  But  'Enrietter  did  not  mind.  She 
worked  marvels  with  what  pots  and  pans  there 
were,  she  was  tidy  enough  not  to  mislay  the 
borrowed  plates  and  cups,  she  knew  just 
where  to  take  tablecloths  and  napkins  and  have 
them  washed  in  a  hurry  when  friends  were 
misguided  enough  to  accept  my  invitation  to 

8 


'Enrietter 

a  makeshift  meal.  If  they  were  still  more  mis- 
guided and  took  me  by  surprise,  she  would 
run  out  for  extra  cutlets,  or  a  salad,  or  fruit, 
and  be  back  again  serving  an  excellent  little 
lunch  or  dinner  before  I  knew  she  had  gone. 
This  was  the  greater  comfort  because  I  had 
just  then  no  time  to  make  things  better.  I 
was  deep,  beyond  my  habit,  in  journalism. 
A  sister  I  had  not  seen  for  ten  years  and  a 
brother-in-law  recovering  from  nervous  pros- 
tration were  in  town.  Poor  man!  What  he 
saw  in  our  chambers  was  enough  to  send  him 
home  with  his  nerves  seven  times  worse  than 
when  he  came.  J.,  fortunately  for  him,  was 
in  the  South  of  France,  drawing  cathedrals. 
That  was  my  one  gleam  of  comfort.  He  at 
least  was  spared  the  tragedy  of  our  first  do- 
mestic venture. 

Upon  the  pleasure  of  that  fortnight  there 
fell  only  a  single  shadow,  but  it  ought  to  have 
proved  a  warning,  if,  at  the  moment,  I  had  not 
been  foolish  enough  to  find  it  amusing.  I  had 
gone  out  one  morning  directly  after  breakfast, 
and  when  I  came  home,  long  after  lunch-time, 
the  British  Workman,  to  my  surprise,  was 

9 


Our  House 

kicking  his  heels  at  my  front  door,  though  his 
rule  was  to  get  comfortably  on  the  other  side 
of  it  once  his  business  at  the  public  house  round 
the  corner  was  settled.  He  was  more  surprised 
than  I,  and  also  rather  hurt.  He  had  been  ring- 
ing for  the  last  ten  minutes,  he  said  reproach- 
fully, and  nobody  would  let  him  in.  After 
I  had  rung  in  my  turn  for  ten  minutes  and 
nobody  had  let  me  in,  I  was  not  hurt,  but 
alarmed. 

It  was  then  that,  for  the  first  and  last  time 
in  my  knowledge  of  him,  the  British  Workman 
had  an  inspiration :  Why  should  n't  he  climb 
the  ladder  behind  our  outer  front  door,  —  we 
can  "sport  our  oak"  if  we  like,  —  get  through 
the  trap-door  at  the  top  to  the  leads,  and  so 
enter  our  little  upper  story,  which  looks  for 
all  the  world  like  a  ship's  cabin  drifted  by 
mistake  on  to  a  London  roof. 

I  was  to  remember  afterwards,  as  they  say 
in  novels,  how,  as  I  watched  him  climb,  it  struck 
me  that  the  burglar  or  the  house-breaker  had 
the  way  made  straight  for  him  if  our  chambers 
ever  seemed  worth  burgling  or  breaking  into. 
The  British  Workman's  step  is  neither  soft 

10 


'Enrietter 

nor  swift,  but  he  carried  through  his  plan  and 
opened  the  door  for  me  without  any  one  being 
aroused  by  his  irregular  proceedings,  which 
added  considerably  to  my  alarm.  But  the  flat 
is  small,  and  my  suspense  was  short.  'En- 
rietter was  in  her  bedroom,  on  her  bed,  sleep- 
ing like  a  child.  I  called  her:  she  never  stirred. 
I  shook  her :  I  might  as  well  have  tried  to  wake 
the  Seven  Sleepers,  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  Bar- 
barossa  in  the  Kyfhaiiser,  and  all  the  sleepers 
who  have  slept  through  centuries  of  myth 
and  legend  rolled  into  one.  I  had  never  seen 
anything  like  it.  I  had  never  heard  of  any- 
thing like  it  except  the  trance  which  leads  to 
canonization,  or  the  catalepsy  that  baffles 
science.  To  have  a  cataleptic  "general"  to 
set  off  against  the  rapping  nurse-maid  of  an 
acquaintance,  who  wanted  me  to  take  her  in 
and  watch  her  in  the  cause  of  Psychology, 
would  be  a  triumph  no  doubt,  but  for  all  do- 
mestic purposes  it  was  likely  to  prove  a  more 
disturbing  drawback  than  untidiness. 

However,  'Enrietter,  when  she  appeared  at 
the  end  of  an  hour,  did  not  call  her  midday 
sleep  by  any  name  so  fine.  She  had  been  scrub- 

II 


Our  House 

bing  very  hard  —  she  suddenly  had  a  faint- 
ness  —  she  felt  dazed,  and,  indeed,  she  looked 
it  still  —  the  heat,  she  thought,  she  hardly 
knew  —  she  threw  herself  on  her  bed  —  she 
fell  asleep.  What  could  be  simpler?  And  her 
smile  had  never  been  prettier,  her  blue  eyes 
never  cast  down  more  demurely.  I  spoke  of  this 
little  incident  later  to  a  friend,  and  was  rash 
enough  to  talk  some  nonsense  about  catalepsy. 
One  should  never  go  to  one's  friends  for  sym- 
pathy. "More  likely  drink,"  was  the  only 
answer. 

Of  course  it  was  drink,  and  I  ought  to  have 
known  it  without  waiting  for  'Enrietter  her- 
self to  destroy  my  illusions,  which  she  did  at 
the  end  of  the  first  fortnight.  The  revelation 
came  with  her  "Sunday  out."  To  simplify 
matters,  I  had  made  it  mine  too.  'Enrietter, 
according  to  my  domestic  regulations,  was  to 
be  back  by  ten  o'clock,  but  to  myself  greater 
latitude  was  allowed,  and  I  did  not  return 
until  after  eleven.  I  was  annoyed  to  see  the 
kitchen  door  wide  open  and  the  kitchen  gas 
flaring,  —  the  worst  of  chambers  is,  you  can't 
help  seeing  everything,  whether  you  want  to 

12 


'Enrietter 

or  not.  'Enrietter  had  been  told  not  to  wait 
up  for  me,  and  excess  of  devotion  can  be  as 
trying  as  excess  of  neglect.  If  only  that  had 
been  my  most  serious  reason  for  annoyance! 
For  when  I  went  into  the  kitchen  I  found  'En- 
rietter sitting  by  the  table,  her  arms  crossed 
on  it,  her  head  resting  on  her  arms,  fast  asleep ; 
and  what  makes  you  laugh  at  noon  may  by 
midnight  become  a  bore.  I  could  n't  wake 
her.  I  could  n't  move  her.  Again,  she  slept 
like  a  log.  In  the  end  I  lost  my  temper,  which 
was  the  best  thing  I  could  have  done,  for  I 
shook  her  with  such  violence  that,  at  last,  she 
stirred  in  her  sleep.  I  shook  harder.  She  lifted 
her  head.  She  smiled. 

"Thash  a'  right,  mum,"  she  said,  and  down 
went  her  head  again. 

Furious,  I  shook  her  up  on  to  her  unsteady 
feet.  "Go  to  bed,"  I  said  with  a  dignity  alto- 
gether lost  upon  her.  "Go  at  once,  and  in 
the  dark.  In  your  disgusting  condition  you  are 
not  fit  to  be  trusted  with  a  candle." 

'Enrietter  smiled.  "Thash  a'  right,  mum," 
she  murmured  reassuringly  as  she  reeled  up 
the  stairs  before  me. 

13 


Our  House 

I  must  say  for  her  that  drink  made  her  nei- 
ther disagreeable  nor  difficult.  She  carried  it 
off  light-heartedly  and  with  the  most  perfect 
politeness. 

I  had  her  in  for  a  talk  the  next  morning.  I 
admit  now  that  this  was  another  folly.  I  ought 
to  have  sent  her  off  bag  and  baggage  then  and 
there.  But  it  was  my  first  experience  of  the 
kind;  I  did  n't  see  what  was  to  become  of  me 
if  she  did  go;  and,  as  I  am  glad  to  remember, 
I  had  the  heart  to  be  sorry  for  her.  She  was  so 
young,  so  pretty,  so  capable.  The  indiscretion 
of  her  Sunday  out  meant  for  me,  at  the  worst, 
temporary  discomfort;  for  her,  it  might  be  the 
beginning  of  a  life's  tragedy.  Her  explanation 
was  ready,  —  she  was  as  quick  at  explaining 
as  at  everything  else.  I  need  n't  tell  her  what 
I  thought  of  her,  it  seemed;  it  was  nothing  to 
what  she  thought  of  herself.  There  was  no  ex- 
cuse. She  was  as  disgusted  as  I  could  be.  It 
was  all  her  sister's  fault.  Her  sister  would  make 
her  drink  a  drop  of  brandy  just  before  she  left 
her  home  at  Richmond.  It  was  very  wrong  of 
her  sister,  who  knew  she  was  n't  used  to  brandy 
and  could  n't  stand  it. 


'Enrietter 

The  story  would  not  have  taken  in  a  child, 
but  as  it  suited  me  to  give  her  another  trial, 
it  was  easier  to  make-believe  to  believe.  Be- 
fore the  interview  was  over  I  ventured  a  little 
good  advice.  I  had  seen  too  often  the  draggled, 
filthy,  sexless  creatures  drink  makes  of  women 
in  London,  and  'Enrietter  was  worth  a  bet- 
ter end.  She  listened  with  admirable  patience 
for  one  who  was  already,  as  I  was  only  too 
quickly  to  learn,  so  far  on  the  way  to  the  Lon- 
don gutter  that  there  was  no  hope  of  holding 
her  back,  as  much  as  an  inch,  by  words  or 
kindness. 

The  next  Sunday  'Enrietter  stayed  in  and 
went  to  bed  sober.  It  was  the  day  after  —  a 
memorable  Monday  —  that  put  an  end  to  all 
compromise  and  make-believe.  I  had  promised 
to  go  down  to  Cambridge,  to  a  lunch  at  one  of 
the  colleges.  At  the  English  Universities  time 
enters  so  little  into  the  scheme  of  existence 
that  one  loses  all  count  of  it,  and  I  was  pretty 
sure  I  should  be  late  in  getting  home.  I  said, 
however,  that  I  should  be  back  early  in  the 
afternoon,  and  I  took  every  latch-key  with  me, 
—  as  if  the  want  of  a  latch-key  could  make  a 

15 


Our  House 

prison  for  so  accomplished  a  young  woman 
as  'Enrietter!  The  day  was  delightful,  the 
weather  as  beautiful  as  it  can  be  in  an  English 
June,  and  the  lunch  gay.  And  afterwards  there 
was  the  stroll  along  the  "Backs,"  and,  in  the 
golden  hour  before  sunset,  afternoon  tea  in  the 
garden,  and  I  need  not  say  that  I  missed  my 
train.  It  was  close  upon  ten  o'clock  when  I 
turned  the  key  in  my  front  door.  The  flat 
was  in  darkness,  except  for  the  light  that  al- 
ways shines  into  our  front  windows  at  night 
from  the  lamps  on  the  Embankment  and 
Charing  Cross  Bridge.  There  was  no  sign  of 
'Enrietter,  and  no  sound  of  her  until  I  had 
pulled  my  bell  three  or  four  times,  and  shouted 
for  her  in  the  manner  I  was  taught  as  a  child 
to  consider  the  worst  sort  of  form,  not  to  say 
vulgar.  But  it  had  its  effect.  A  faint  voice 
answered  from  the  ship's  cabin  upstairs, 
"Coming,  mum." 

"Light  the  gas  and  the  lamp,"  I  said  when 
I  heard  her  in  the  hall. 

The  situation  called  for  all  the  light  I  could 
get.  From  the  methodical  way  she  set  about 
lighting  the  hall  gas  I  knew  that,  at  least,  she 

16 


'Enrietter 

could  not  be  reeling.  Then  she  came  in  and 
lit  the  lamp,  and  I  saw  her. 

It  was  a  thousand  times  worse  than  reeling, 
and  my  breath  was  taken  away  with  the  hor- 
ror of  it.  For  there  she  stood,  in  a  flashy  pink 
dressing-gown  that  was  a  disgrace  in  itself, 
her  face  ghastly  as  death,  and  all  across  her 
forehead,  low  down  over  one  of  the  blue  eyes, 
a  great,  wide,  red  gash. 

Before  I  had  time  to  pull  myself  together 
'Enrietter  had  told  her  story, —  so  poor  a  story 
it  showed  how  desperate  now  was  her  case. 
She  had  been  quiet  all  morning  —  no  one  had 
come  —  she  had  got  through  the  extra  work  I 
left  with  her.  About  three  the  milkman  rang. 
A  high  wind  was  blowing.  The  door,  when 
she  opened  it,  banged  in  her  face  and  cut  her 
head  open.  And  it  had  bled!  She  had  only 
just  succeeded  in  stopping  it.  One  part  of  her 
story,  anyway,  was  true  beyond  dispute.  That 
terrible,  gaping  wound  spoke  for  itself. 

I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I  was  new  in 
the  neighbourhood,  and  my  acquaintance  with 
doctors  anywhere  is  slight.  But  I  could  not 
turn  her  into  the  street,  I  could  not  even 

17 


Our  House 

leave  her  under  my  own  roof  all  night,  like 
that.  Something  had  to  be  done,  and  I  ran 
downstairs  to  consult  the  old  Housekeeper, 
who,  after  her  half  century  in  the  Quarter, 
might  be  expected  to  know  how  to  meet  any 
emergency. 

More  horrors  awaited  me  in  her  room,  — 
like  Macbeth,  I  was  supping  full  with  horrors, 
—  for  she  had  another  story  to  tell,  and,  as 
I  listened,  the  ghastly  face  upstairs,  with  the 
gaping  red  wound,  became  a  mere  item  in  an 
orgy  more  appropriate  to  the  annals  of  the 
Rougon-Macquarts  than,  I  devoutly  trust,  to 
ours.  I  cannot  tell  the  story  as  the  House- 
keeper told  it.  She  had  a  trick  of  going  into 
hysterics  at  moments  of  excitement,  and  as 
in  all  the  years  she  had  been  in  charge  she  had 
never  seen  such  goings  on,  it  followed  that  in 
all  those  years,  she  had  never  been  so  hysteri- 
cal. She  gasped  and  sobbed  out  her  tale  of 
horrors,  and,  all  the  while,  her  daughter,  who 
was  in  the  profession,  sat  apart,  and,  in  the  ex- 
asperating fashion  of  the  chorus  of  a  Greek 
play,  kept  up  a  running  commentary  emphasiz- 
ing the  points  too  emphatic  to  need  emphasis. 

18 


'Enrietter 

To  tell  the  story  in  my  own  way:  I  was 
hardly  out  of  the  house  when  'Enrietter  had 
a  visit  from  a  "gentleman,"  —  that  was  the 
Housekeeper's  description  of  him,  and,  as 
things  go  in  England,  he  was  a  gentleman, 
which  makes  my  story  the  more  sordid.  How 
'Enrietter  had  sent  him  word  the  coast  was 
clear  I  do  not  pretend  to  say,  though  I  believe 
the  London  milkman  has  a  reputation  as  the 
Cupid's  Postman  of  the  kitchen,  and  I  re- 
called afterwards  two  or  three  notes  'Enrietter 
had  received  from  her  sister  by  district  mes- 
senger, —  the  same  sister,  no  doubt,  who  gave 
her  the  drop  of  brandy.  Towards  noon  'Enri- 
etter and  her  gentleman  were  seen  to  come 
downstairs  and  go  out  together.  Where  they 
went,  what  they  did  during  the  three  hours 
of  their  absence,  no  one  knew,  —  no  one  will 
ever  know.  Sometimes,  in  looking  back,  the 
greatest  horrors  to  me  are  the  unknown  chap- 
ters in  the  story  of  that  day's  doings.  They 
were  seen  to  return,  about  three,  in  a  hansom. 
The  gentleman  got  out,  unsteadily.  'Enrietter 
followed  and  collapsed  in  a  little  heap  on  the 
pavement.  He  lifted  her,  and  staggered  with 

19 


Our  House 

her  in  by  the  door  and  up  the  three  long  flights 
of  stairs  to  our  chambers. 

And  then  —  I  confess,  at  this  point  even 
now  my  anger  gets  the  better  of  me.  Every 
key  for  my  front  door  was  in  my  pocket,  — 
women  were  still  allowed  pockets  in  those  days. 
There  was  no  possible  way  in  which  they  could 
have  got  in  again,  had  not  that  gentleman 
climbed  the  ladder  up  which  I  had  watched 
the  British  Workman  not  so  many  days  be- 
fore, and,  technically,  broken  into  my  place, 
and  then  come  down  the  little  stairway  and 
let  'Enrietter  in.  A  burglar  would  have  seemed 
clean  and  honest  compared  to  the  gentle- 
man housebreaking  on  such  an  errand.  My 
front  door  was  heard  to  bang  upon  them 
both,  and  I  wish  to  Heaven  it  had  been  the 
last  sound  heard  from  our  chambers  that  day. 
For  a  time  all  was  still.  Then,  of  a  sudden, 
piercing  screams  rang  through  the  house  and 
out  through  the  open  windows  into  the  scan- 
dalized Quarter.  There  was  a  noise  of  heavy 
things  falling  or  thrown  violently  down,  curses 
filled  the  air;  as  the  Housekeeper  told  it  to  me, 
it  was  like  something  out  of  Morrison's  "Mean 

20 


'Enrietter 

Streets"  or  the  " Police-Court  Gazette,"  and 
the  dreadful  part  of  it  was  that,  no  doubt,  I 
was  being  held  responsible  for  it!  At  last,  loud 
above  everything  else,  came  blood-curdling 
cries  of  "Murder!  Murder!  Help!  Murder!" 
There  was  not  a  window  of  the  many  over- 
looking my  back  rooms  that  was  not  filled 
with  terrified  neighbours.  The  lady  in  the 
chambers  on  the  floor  below  mine  set  up  a 
cry  of  her  own  for  the  police.  The  clerks  from 
the  Church  League  and  from  the  Architect's 
office  were  gathered  on  the  stairs.  A  nice 
reputation  I  must  be  getting  in  the  house 
before  my  first  month  in  it  was  up! 

The  Housekeeper,  with  a  new  attack  of 
hysterics,  protested  that  she  had  not  dared 
to  interfere,  though  she  had  a  key,  nor  could 
she  give  it  to  a  policeman  without  my  author- 
ity —  she  knew  her  duty.  The  Greek  Chorus 
repeated,  without  hysterics  but  with  careful 
elocution,  that  the  Housekeeper  could  not  go 
in  nor  fetch  the  police  without  my  authority  — 
she  knew  her  duty.  And  so,  the  deeds  that 
were  done  within  my  four  walls  on  that  beau- 
tiful June  afternoon  must  remain  a  mystery. 

21 


Our  House 

The  only  record  is  the  mark  'Enrietter  will 
carry  on  her  forehead  with  her  to  the  grave. 
The  noise  gradually  ceased.  The  neighbours, 
one  by  one,  left  the  windows,  the  lady  below 
disappeared  into  her  flat.  The  clerks  went 
back  to  work.  And  the  Housekeeper  crept 
into  her  rooms  for  the  cup  of  tea  that  saves 
every  situation  for  the  Englishwoman.  She 
had  not  finished  when  there  came  a  knock  at 
the  door.  She  opened  it,  and  there  stood  a 
gentleman  —  the  gentleman  —  anyone  could 
see  he  was  a  gentleman  by  his  hat  —  and 
he  told  her  his  story:  the  third  version  of  the 
affair.  He  was  a  medical  student,  he  said. 
He  happened  to  be  passing  along  the  Strand 
when,  just  in  front  of  Charing  Cross,  a  cab 
knocked  over  a  young  lady.  She  was  badly 
hurt,  but,  as  a  medical  student,  he  knew 
what  to  do.  He  put  her  into  another  cab 
and  brought  her  home;  he  saw  to  her  in- 
juries; but  now  he  could  stay  no  longer.  She 
seemed  to  be  quite  alone  up  there.  Her  con- 
dition was  serious ;  she  should  not  be  left  alone. 
And  he  lifted  his  hat  and  was  gone.  But  the 
Housekeeper  dare  n't  intrude,  even  then;  she 

22 


'Enrietter 

knew  her  place  and  her  duty.  She  knew  her 
place  and  her  duty,  the  Greek  Chorus  echoed, 
and  the  end  of  her  story  brought  me  to  just 
where  I  was  at  the  beginning.  Upon  one 
point  the  gentleman  was  right,  and  that  was 
the  condition  of  the  "young  lady"  as  long  as 
that  great  wide  gash  still  gaped  open.  The 
Housekeeper,  practical  for  all  her  hysterics, 
sobbed  out  "The  Hospital."  "The  Hospital!" 
echoed  the  Greek  Chorus,  and  I  mounted  the 
three  flights  of  stairs  for  'Enrietter. 

I  tied  up  her  head.  I  made  her  exchange  the 
shameless  pink  dressing-gown  for  her  usual 
clothes.  I  helped  her  on  with  her  hat,  though 
I  thought  she  would  faint  before  she  was 
dressed.  I  led  her  down  the  three  flights  of 
stairs  into  the  street,  across  the  Strand,  to  the 
hospital.  By  this  time  it  was  well  past  eleven. 

So  far  I  had  n't  had  a  chance  to  think  of  ap- 
pearances. But  one  glance  from  the  night-sur- 
geon at  the  hospital,  and  it  was  hard  to  think 
of  anything  else.  He  did  not  say  a  word  more 
than  the  case  demanded,  but  his  behaviour 
to  me  was  abominable  all  the  same.  And  I 
cannot  blame  him.  There  was  I,  decently 

23 


Our  House 

dressed  I  hope,  for  I  had  put  on  my  very  best 
for  Cambridge,  in  charge  of  a  young  woman 
dressed  anyhow  and  with  a  broken  head.  It 
was  getting  on  toward  midnight.  The  Strand 
was  a  stone's  throw  away.  Still,  in  his  place, 
I  hope  I  should  have  been  less  brutal. 

As  for  'Enrietter,  she  had  plenty  of  pluck, 
if  she  had  no  morals.  She  bore  the  grisly 
business  of  having  her  head  sewn  up  with  the 
nerve  of  a  martyr.  She  never  flinched,  she 
never  moaned;  she  was  heroic.  When  it  was 
over,  the  night-surgeon  told  her  —  he  never 
addressed  himself  to  me  if  he  could  help  it  — 
that  it  was  a  nasty  cut  and  must  be  seen  to 
again  the  next  day.  The  right  eye  had  es- 
caped by  miracle,  it  might  yet  be  affected. 
What  was  most  important  at  this  stage  was 
perfect  quiet,  perfect  repose.  It  was  essential 
that  she  should  sleep,  —  she  must  take  some- 
thing to  make  her  sleep.  When  I  asked  him 
meekly  to  give  me  an  opiate  for  her,  he  an- 
swered curtly  that  that  was  not  his  affair. 
There  was  a  chemist  close  by,  I  could  get 
opium  pills  there,  and  he  turned  on  his  heel. 

I  took  'Enrietter  home.  I  saw  her  up  the 
24 


'Enrietter 

three  long  flights  of  stairs  to  our  chambers, 
the  one  little  stairway  to  her  bedroom,  and 
into  her  bed.  I  walked  down  the  little  stair- 
way and  the  three  long  flights.  I  went  out 
into  the  night.  I  hurried  to  the  chemist's. 
It  was  past  midnight,  an  hour  when  decent 
women  are  not  expected  to  wander  alone  in 
the  Strand,  and  now  I  was  conscious  that 
things  might  look  queer  to  others.  I  skulked 
in  the  darkest  shadows  like  a  criminal.  I 
bought  the  pills.  I  came  home.  For  the  fourth 
time  I  toiled  up  the  three  long  flights  of  stairs 
and  the  one  little  stairway.  I  gave  'Enrietter 
her  pills.  I  put  out  her  light.  I  shut  her  in 
her  room. 

f  And  then  ?  Why,  then,  I  had  n't  taken  an 
opium  pill.  I  was  n't  sleepy.  I  did  n't  want 
to  sleep.  I  wanted  to  find  out.  I  did  what  I 
have  always  thought  no  self-respecting  person 
would  do.  But  to  be  mixed  up  in  'Enrietter's 
affairs  was  not  calculated  to  strengthen  one's 
self-respect.  And  without  a  scruple  I  went 
into  the  kitchen  and  opened  every  drawer, 
cupboard,  and  box,  and  read  every  letter, 
every  scrap  of  paper,  I  could  lay  my  hands 

25 


Our  House 

on.  There  was  n't  much  all  told,  but  it  was 
enough.  For  I  found  out  that  the  medical 
student,  the  gentleman,  was  a  clerk  in  the 
Bank  of  England,  —  I  should  like  him  to  read 
this  and  to  know  that  I  know  his  name  and 
have  his  reputation  in  my  hands.  I  found  out 
that  'Enrietter  was  his  "old  woman,"  and  a 
great  many  other  things  she  ought  not  to  have 
been.  I  found  out  that  I  had  not  dined  once 
with  my  friends  that  he  had  not  spent  the 
evening  with  her.  I  found  out  that  he  had 
kept  count  of  my  every  engagement  with 
greater  care  than  I  had  myself.  I  found  out 
that  he  had  spent  so  many  hours  in  my  kitchen 
that  the  question  was  what  time  he  had  left 
for  the  Bank  of  England.  And  I  found  such 
an  assortment  of  flasks  and  bottles  that  I 
could  only  marvel  how  'Enrietter  had  man- 
aged to  be  sober  for  one  minute  during  the 
three  weeks  of  her  stay  with  me. 

I  sent  for  a  charwoman  the  next  morning. 
She  was  of  the  type  now  rapidly  dying  out 
in  London,  and  more  respectable,  if  possible, 
than  the  Housekeeper.  Her  manner  went 
far  to  restore  my  self-respect,  and  this  was  the 

26 


'Enrietter 

only  service  I  could  ask  of  her,  her  time  being 
occupied  chiefly  in  waiting  upon  'Enrietter. 
In  fairness,  I  ought  to  add  that  'Enrietter  was 
game  to  the  last.  She  got  up  and  downstairs 
somehow,  she  cooked  the  lunch,  she  would 
have  waited  on  the  table,  bandaged  head  and 
all,  had  I  let  her.  But  the  less  I  saw  of  her, 
the  greater  her  chance  for  the  repose  pre- 
scribed by  the  night-surgeon.  Besides,  she  and 
her  bandaged  head  were  due  at  the  hospital. 
This  time  she  went  in  charge  of  the  char- 
woman, whose  neat  shabby  shawl  and  bon- 
net, as  symbols  of  respectability,  were  more 
than  sufficient  to  keep  all  the  night  or  day 
surgeons  of  London  in  their  place.  They  re- 
turned with  the  cheerful  intelligence  that 
matters  were  much  worse  than  was  at  first 
thought,  that  'Enrietter's  eye  was  in  serious 
danger,  and  absolute  quiet  in  a  darkened  room 
was  essential,  that  lotions  must  be  applied 
and  medicines  administered  at  regular  inter- 
vals, —  in  a  word,  that  our  chambers,  as  long 
as  she  remained  in  them,  must  be  turned  into  a 
nursing  home,  with  myself  as  chief  nurse,  which 
was  certainly  not  what  I  had  engaged  her  for. 

27 


Our  House 

I  went  upstairs,  when  she  was  in  bed  again, 
and  told  her  so.  She  must  send  for  some  one, 
I  did  not  care  whom,  to  come  and  take  her  off 
my  hands  at  once.  My  temper  was  at  boiling- 
point,  but  not  for  the  world  would  I  have 
shown  it  or  done  anything  to  destroy  'Enri- 
etter's  repose  and  so  make  matters  worse, 
and  not  be  able  to  get  rid  of  her  at  all.  As 
usual,  her  resources  did  not  fail  her;  she  was 
really  wonderful  all  through.  There  was  an 
old  friend  of  her  father's,  she  said,  who  was 
in  the  Bank  of  England  —  I  knew  that  friend; 
he  could  admit  her  into  a  hospital  of  which  he 
was  a  patron  —  Heaven  help  that  hospital! 
But  I  held  my  peace.  I  even  wrote  her  letter 
and  sent  it  to  the  post  by  the  charwoman. 
'Enrietter's  morals  were  beyond  me,  but  my 
own  comfort  was  not. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  most  astonish-' 
ing  thing  in  all  the  astonishing  episode  was 
not  the  reappearance  of  the  old  friend  of  her 
father's  in  his  other  role  of  medical  student. 
I  suppose  he  did  not  realize  how  grave  'Enri- 
etter's  condition  was.  I  am  sure  he  did  not 
expect  anything  less  than  that  I  should  open 

28 


'Enrietter 

the  door  for  him.  But  this  was  what  happened. 
His  visit  was  late,  the  charwoman  had  gone  for 
the  night,  and  I  was  left  to  do  all  'Enrietter's 
work  myself.  He  did  not  need  to  tell  me  who 
he  was,  —  his  face  did  that  for  him,  —  but  he 
stammered  out  the  wretched  fable  of  the 
medical  student,  the  young  lady,  and  the  cab. 
She  was  quite  alone  when  he  left  her,  he  added, 
and  he  was  worried,  and,  being  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, he  called  in  passing  to  enquire  if 
the  young  lady  were  better,  and  if  there  were 
now  some  one  to  take  care  of  her.  His  self- 
confidence  came  back  as  he  talked. 

"Your  story  is  extremely  interesting,"  I 
told  him,  "and  I  am  especially  glad  to  hear 
it,  because  my  cook"  —  with  a  vindictive 
emphasis  on  the  cook  —  "  has  told  me  quite 
a  different  one  as  to  how  she  came  by  her 
broken  head.  Now — " 

He  was  gone.  He  threw  all  pretence  to  the 
winds  and  ran  downstairs  as  if  the  police 
were  at  his  heels,  as  I  wished  they  were.  I 
could  not  run  after  him  without  making  a 
second  scandal  in  the  house;  and  if  I  had 
caught  him,  if  I  had  given  him  in  custody  for 

29 


Our  House 

trespass,  as  I  was  told  afterwards  I  might  have 
done,  how  would  I  have  liked  figuring  in  the 
Police  Courts? 

Curiously,  he  did  have  influence  with  the 
hospital,  which  shall  be  nameless.  He  did  get 
a  bed  there  for  'Enrietter  the  next  morning. 
It  may  be  that  he  had  learned  by  experience 
the  convenience  to  himself  of  having  a  hospi- 
tal, as  it  were,  in  his  pocket.  But  the  arrange- 
ments were  by  letter;  he  did  not  risk  a  second 
meeting,  and  I  asked  'Enrietter  no  ques- 
tions. For  my  own  satisfaction,  I  went  with 
her  to  the  hospital:  a  long,  melancholy  drive 
in  a  four-wheeler,  'Enrietter  with  ghastly  face, 
more  dead  than  alive.  I  delivered  her  into  the 
hands  of  the  nurses.  I  left  her  there,  a  band- 
aged wreck  of  the  pretty  'Enrietter  who  had 
been  such  an  ornament  to  our  chambers. 
And  that  was  the  last  I  saw  of  her,  though  not 
the  last  I  heard. 

A  day  or  two  later  her  sister  came  to  pack 
up  her  belongings,  —  a  young  woman  with  a 
vacant  smile,  a  roving  eye,  and  a  baby  in  her 
arms.  I  had  only  to  look  at  her  to  know  that 
she  was  n't  the  sort  of  sister  to  force  anything 

30 


'Enrietter 

on  anybody,  much  less  on  'Enrietter.  And 
yet  I  went  to  the  trouble  of  reading  her  a  little 
lecture.  'Enrietter's  morals  were  beyond  me, 
but  I  am  not  entirely  without  a  conscience. 
The  sister  kept  on  simpering  vacantly,  while 
her  eyes  roved  from  print  to  print  on  the  walls 
of  the  dining-room  where  the  lecture  was  de- 
livered, and  the  baby  stared  at  me  with  por- 
tentous solemnity. 

Then,  about  three  weeks  after  the  sister's 
visit,  I  heard  from  'Enrietter  herself.  She 
wrote  with  her  accustomed  politeness.  She 
begged  my  pardon  for  troubling  me.  She  had 
left  the  hospital.  She  was  at  home  in  Rich- 
mond, and  she  had  just  unpacked  the  trunk 
the  sister  had  packed  for  her.  Only  one  thing 
was  missing.  She  would  be  deeply  obliged  if 
I  would  look  in  the  left-hand  drawer  of  the 
kitchen  dresser  and  send  her  the  package  of 
cigarettes  I  would  find  there.  And  she  was 
mine,  "Very  respectfully." 

This  is  the  story  of  'Enrietter's  adventures 
in  our  chambers,  and  I  think  whoever  reads 
it  will  not  wonder  that  I  fought  shy  afterwards 
of  the  English  servant  who  was  not  well  on 

31 


Our  House 

the  wrong  side  of  forty  and  whose  thirst  could 
not  be  quenched  with  tea.  The  real  wonder 
is  that  I  had  the  courage  to  risk  another  maid 
of  any  kind.  Women  have  been  reproached 
with  their  love  of  gossiping  about  servants 
since  time  immemorial,  and  I  do  not  know  for 
how  long  before  that.  But  when  I  remember 
'Enrietter,  I  do  not  understand  how  we  have 
the  heart  ever  to  gossip  about  anything  else. 
What  became  of  her,  who  can  say?  Sometimes, 
when  I  think  of  her  pretty  face  and  all  that 
was  good  in  her,  I  can  only  hope  that  the  next 
orgy  led  to  still  worse  things  than  a  broken 
head,  and  that  Death  saved  her  from  the 
London  streets. 


II 

Trimmer 


II 


TRIMMER 

UNTIL  I  began  my  search  for  an  elderly  wo- 
man who  never  drank  anything  stronger  than 
tea,  I  had  supposed  it  was  the  old  who  could 
find  nobody  to  give  them  work.  But  my  trouble 
was  to  find  somebody  old  enough  to  give  mine 
to.  The  "superior  domestics"  at  the  Registry 
Offices  were  much  too  well  trained  to  confess 
even  to  middle  age,  and  probably  I  should  be 
looking  for  my  elderly  woman  to  this  day, 
had  not  chance  led  Trimmer  one  afternoon 
to  an  office  which  I  had  left  without  hope  in 
the  morning.  As  her  years  could  supply  no 
possible  demand  save  mine,  she  was  sent  at 
once  to  our  chambers. 

To  tell  the  truth,  as  soon  as  I  saw  her,  I 
began  to  doubt  my  own  wisdom.  I  had  never 
imagined  anybody  quite  so  respectable.  In  her 
neat  but  rusty  black  dress  and  cape,  her  hair 
parted  and  brought  carefully  down  over  her 

35 


Our  House 

ears,  her  bonnet  tied  under  her  chin,  her 
reticule  hanging  on  her  arm,  she  was  the  in- 
carnation of  British  respectability;  "the  very 
type,"  the  "old  Master  Rembrandt  van  Rijn, 
with  three  Baedeker  stars,"  I  could  almost 
hear  Mr.  Henry  James  describing  her;  and  all 
she  wanted  was  to  belong  "beautifully"  to 
me.  But  then  she  looked  as  old  as  she  looked 
respectable,  —  so  much  older  than  I  meant  her 
to  look,  —  old  to  the  point  of  fragility.  She 
admitted  to  fifty-five,  and  when  mentally  I 
added  four  or  five  years  more,  I  am  sure  I  was 
not  over  generous.  Her  face  was  filled  with 
wrinkles,  her  skin  was  curiously  delicate,  and 
she  had  the  pallor  that  comes  from  a  steady 
diet  of  tea  and  bread  and  sometimes  butter. 
The  hands  through  the  large,  carefully  mended 
black  gloves  showed  twisted  and  stiff,  and  it 
was  not  easy  to  fancy  them  making  our  beds 
and  our  fires,  cooking  our  dinners,  dusting 
our  rooms,  opening  our  front  door.  We  needed 
some  one  to  take  care  of  us,  and  it  was  plain 
that  she  was  far  more  in  need  of  some  one  to 
take  care  of  her,  —  all  the  plainer  because 
of  her  anxiety  to  prove  her  capacity  for  work. 

36 


Trimmer 

There  was  nothing  she  could  not  do,  nothing 
she  would  not  do  if  I  were  but  to  name  it. 
"I  can  cut  about,  mum,  you'll  see.  Oh,  I'm 
bonny!"  And  the  longer  she  talked,  the  better 
I  knew  that  during  weeks,  and  perhaps  months, 
she  had  been  hunting  for  a  place,  which  at 
the  best  is  wearier  work  than  hunting  for  a 
servant,  and  at  the  worst  leads  straight  to  the 
workhouse,  the  one  resource  left  for  the  honest 
poor  who  cannot  get  a  chance  to  earn  their 
living,  and  who,  by  the  irony  of  things,  dread 
it  worse  than  death. 

With  my  first  doubt  I  ought  to  have  sent 
her  away.  But  I  kept  putting  off  the  uncom- 
fortable duty  by  asking  her  questions,  only 
to  find  that  she  was  irreproachable  on  the 
subject  of  alcohol,  that  she  preferred  "beer- 
money  "  to  beer,  that  there  was  no  excuse  not 
to  take  her  except  her  age,  and  this,  in  the  face 
of  her  eagerness  to  remain,  I  had  not  the 
pluck  to  make.  My  hesitation  cost  me  the 
proverbial  price.  Before  the  interview  was 
over  I  had  engaged  her  on  the  condition  that 
her  references  were  good,  as  of  course  they  were, 
though  she  sent  me  for  them  to  the  most 

37 


Our  House 

unexpected  place  in  the  world,  a  corset  and 
petticoat  shop  not  far  from  Leicester  Square. 
Through  the  quarter  to  which  all  that  is 
disreputable  in  Europe  drifts,  where  any  sort 
of  virtue  is  exposed  to  damage  beyond  re- 
pair, she  had  carried  her  respectability  and 
emerged  more  respectable  than  ever. 

She  came  to  us  with  so  little  delay  that  I 
knew  better  than  ever  how  urgent  was  her 
case.  Except  for  the  providentially  short 
interval  with  'Enrietter,  this  was  my  first 
experience  of  the  British  servant,  and  it  was 
enough  to  make  me  tremble.  It  was  im- 
possible to  conceive  of  anything  more  British. 
Her  print  dress,  changed  for  a  black  one  in  the 
afternoon,  her  white  apron  and  white  cap,  be- 
came in  my  eyes  symbolic.  I  seemed,  in  her, 
to  face  the  entire  caste  of  British  servants 
who  are  so  determined  never  to  be  slaves  that 
they  would  rather  fight  for  their  freedom  to  be 
as  slavish  as  they  always  have  been.  She  knew 
her  place,  and  what  is  more,  she  knew  ours, 
and  meant  to  keep  us  in  it,  no  matter  whether 
we  liked  or  did  not  like  to  be  kept  there.  I 
was  the  Mistress  and  J.  was  the  Master,  and 

38 


Trimmer 

if,  with  our  American  notions,  we  forgot  it,  she 
never  did,  but  on  our  slightest  forgetfulness 
brought  us  up  with  a  round  turn.  So  correct, 
indeed,  was  her  conduct,  and  so  respectable 
and  venerable  was  her  appearance,  that  she 
produced  the  effect  in  our  chambers  of  an  old 
family  retainer.  Friends  would  have  had  us 
train  her  to  address  me  as  "Miss  Elizabeth," 
or  J.  as  "Master  J.,"  and  pass  her  off  for  the 
faithful  old  nurse  who  is  now  so  seldom  met 
out  of  fiction. 

For  all  her  deference,  however,  she  clung 
obstinately  to  her  prejudices.  We  might  be  as 
American  in  our  ways  as  we  pleased,  she  would 
not  let  us  off  one  little  British  bit  in  hers. 
She  never  presumed  unbidden  upon  an  obser- 
vation, and  if  I  forced  one  from  her  she  in- 
variably begged  my  pardon  for  the  liberty. 
She  thanked  us  for  everything,  for  what  we 
wanted  as  gratefully  as  for  what  we  did  not 
want.  She  saw  that  we  had  hot  water  for  our 
hands  at  the  appointed  hours.  She  compelled 
us  to  eat  Yorkshire  pudding  with  our  sirloin 
of  beef,  and  bread-sauce  with  our  fowl,  —  in 
this  connection  how  can  I  bring  myself  to  say 

39 


Our  House 

chicken?  She  could  never  quite  forgive  us  for 
our  indifference  to  "sweets";  and  for  the 
daily  bread-and-butter  puddings  and  tarts  we 
would  not  have,  she  made  up  by  an  orgy  of 
tipsy  cakes  and  creams  when  anybody  came 
to  dine.  How  she  was  reconciled  to  our  per- 
sistent refusal  of  afternoon  tea,  I  always  won- 
dered; though  I  sometimes  thought  that,  by 
the  stately  function  she  made  of  it  in  the 
kitchen,  she  hoped  to  atone  for  this  worst  of 
our  American  heresies. 

Whatever  she  might  be  as  a  type,  there  was 
no  denying  that  as  a  servant  she  had  all  the 
qualities.  She  was  an  excellent  cook,  despite 
her  flamboyant  and  florid  taste  in  sweets ;  she 
was  sober,  she  was  obliging,  she  had  by  no 
means  exaggerated  her  talent  for  "cutting 
about,"  and  I  never  ceased  to  be  astonished 
at  the  amount  she  accomplished.  The  fire  was 
always  burning  when  we  got  down  in  the 
morning,  breakfast  always  ready.  Beds  were 
made,  lunch  served,  the  front  door  opened, 
dinner  punctual.  I  do  not  know  how  she  did 
it  all,  and  I  now  remember  with  thankfulness 
our  scruples  when  we  saw  her  doing  it,  and  the 

40 


Trimmer 

early  date  at  which  we  supplied  her  with  an 
assistant  in  the  shape  of  a  snuffy,  frowzy  old 
charwoman.  The  revelation  of  how  much  too 
much  remained  for  her  even  then  came  only 
when  we  lost  her,  and  I  was  obliged  to  look 
below  the  surface.  While  she  was  with  us, 
the  necessity  of  looking  below  never  occurred 
to  me;  and  as  our  chambers  had  been  done  up 
from  top  to  bottom  just  before  she  moved  into 
them,  they  stood  her  method  on  the  surface 
admirably. 

This  method  perhaps  struck  me  as  the  more 
complete  because  it  left  her  the  leisure  for  a 
frantic  attempt  to  anticipate  our  every  wish. 
She  tried  to  help  us  with  a  perseverance  that 
was  exasperating,  and  as  her  training  had 
taught  her  the  supremacy  of  the  master  in 
the  house,  it  was  upon  J.  that  her  efforts  were 
chiefly  spent.  I  could  see  him  writhe  under 
her  devotion,  until  there  were  times  when  I 
dreaded  to  think  what  might  come  of  it,  all 
the  more  because  my  sympathies  were  so 
entirely  with  him.  If  he  opened  his  door,  she 
rushed  to  ask  what  he  wanted.  A  spy  could 
not  have  spied  more  diligently;  and  as  in  our 


Our  House 

small  chambers  the  kitchen  door  was  almost 
opposite  his,  he  never  went  or  came  that  she 
did  not  know  it.  He  might  be  as  short  with 
her  as  he  could,  and  in  British  fashion  order 
her  never  to  come  into  the  studio,  but  it  was 
no  use;  she  could  not  keep  out  of  it.  Each 
new  visitor,  or  letter,  or  message,  was  an  ex- 
cuse for  her  to  flounder  in  among  the  port- 
folios on  the  floor  and  the  bottles  of  acid  in 
the  corner,  at  the  risk  of  his  temper  and  her 
life.  On  the  whole,  he  bore  it  with  admirable 
patience.  But  there  was  one  awful  morning 
when  he  hurried  into  my  room,  slammed  the 
door  after  him,  and  in  a  whisper  said,  —  he 
who  would  not  hurt  a  fly,  —  "If  you  don't 
keep  that  woman  out  of  my  room,  I'll  wring 
her  neck  for  her !  " 

I  might  have  spared  myself  any  anxiety. 
Had  J.  offered  to  her  face  to  wring  her  neck, 
she  would  have  smiled  and  said,  "That's  all 
right,  sir!  Thank  you,  sir!"  For,  with  Trim- 
mer, to  be  "bonny"  meant  to  be  cheerful 
under  any  and  all  conditions.  So  long  as  her 
cherished  traditions  were  not  imperilled,  she 
had  a  smile  for  every  emergency.  It  was 

42 


Trimmer 

characteristic  of  her  to  allow  me  to  christen 
her  anew  the  first  day  she  was  with  us,  and  not 
once  to  protest.  We  could  not  bring  ourselves 
to  call  her  Lily,  her  Christian  name,  so  inap- 
propriate was  it  to  her  venerable  appearance. 
Her  surname  was  even  more  impossible,  for 
she  was  the  widow  of  a  Mr.  Trim.  She  her- 
self —  helpful  from  the  beginning  —  suggested 
"cook."  But  she  was  a  number  of  things  be- 
sides, and  though  I  did  not  mind  my  friends 
knowing  that  she  was  as  many  persons  in  one 
as  the  cook  of  the  Nancy  Bell,  it  would  have 
been  superfluous  to  remind  them  of  it  on 
every  occasion.  When,  at  my  wits'  end,  I 
added  a  few  letters  and  turned  the  impossible 
Trim  into  Trimmer,  she  could  not  have  been 
more  pleased  had  I  made  her  a  present,  and 
from  that  moment  she  answered  to  the  new 
name  as  if  born  to  it. 

The  same  philosophy  carried  her  through 
every  trial  and  tribulation.  It  was  sure  to  be 
all  right  if,  before  my  eyes  and  driving  me  to 
tears,  she  broke  the  plates  I  could  not  replace 
without  a  journey  to  Central  France,  or  if  in 
the  morning  the  kitchen  was  a  wreck  after  the 

43 


Our  House 

night  Jimmy,  our  unspeakable  black  cat,  had 
been  making  of  it.  Fortunately  he  went  out  as 
a  rule  for  his  sprees,  realizing  that  our  estab- 
lishment could  not  stand  the  wear  and  tear. 
When  he  chanced  to  stay  at  home,  I  have  come 
down  to  the  kitchen  in  the  morning  to  find 
the  clock  ticking  upside  down  on  the  floor, 
oranges  and  apples  rolling  about,  spoons  and 
forks  under  the  table,  cups  and  saucers  in 
pieces,  and  Jimmy  on  the  table  washing  his 
face.  But  Trimmer  would  meet  me  with  a 
radiant  smile  and  would  put  things  to  rights, 
while  Jimmy  purred  at  her  heels,  as  if  both 
were  rather  proud  of  the  exploit,  certain  that 
no  other  cat  in  the  world  could,  "all  by  his 
lone"  and  in  one  night,  work  such  ruin. 

After  all,  it  was  a  good  deal  Trimmer's 
fault  if  we  got  into  the  habit  of  shifting  disa- 
greeable domestic  details  on  to  her  shoulders, 
she  had  such  a  way  of  offering  them  for  the 
purpose.  It  was  she  who,  when  Jimmy's  orgies 
had  at  last  undermined  his  health  and  the 
"vet"  prescribed  a  dose  of  chloroform  as  the 
one  remedy,  went  to  see  it  administered, 
coming  back  to  tell  us  of  the  "  beautiful 

44 


Trimmer 

corpse"  he  had  made.  It  was  she  who  took 
our  complaints  to  the  Housekeeper  downstairs, 
and  met  those  the  other  tenants  brought 
against  us.  It  was  she  who  bullied  stupid 
tradesmen  and  stirred  up  idle  workmen.  It 
was  she,  in  a  word,  who  served  as  domestic 
scapegoat.  And  she  never  remonstrated.  I 
am  convinced  that  if  I  had  said,  "  Trimmer, 
there's  a  lion  roaring  at  the  door,"  she  would 
have  answered,  "That's  all  right,  mum! 
thank  you,  mum!"  and  rushed  to  say  that  we 
were  not  at  home  to  him.  As  it  happens,  I 
know  how  she  would  have  faced  a  burglar,  for 
late  one  evening  when  I  was  alone  in  our 
chambers,  I  heard  some  one  softly  trying  to 
turn  the  knob  of  the  door  of  the  box-room. 
What  I  did  was  to  shut  and  bolt  the  door  at  the 
foot  of  our  little  narrow  stairway,  thankful  that 
there  was  a  door  there  that  could  be  bolted. 
What  Trimmer  did,  when  she  came  home  ten 
minutes  later  and  I  told  her,  "There's  a  bur- 
glar in  the  box- room,"  was  to  say,  "Oh,  is  there, 
mum?  thank  you,  mum.  That's  all  right.  I'll 
just  run  up  and  see";  and  she  lit  her  candle 
and  walked  right  up  to  the  box-room  and  un- 

45 


Our  House 

locked  and  opened  the  door.  Out  flew  William 
Penn,  furious  with  us  because  he  had  let  him- 
self be  shut  in  where  nobody  had  seen  him 
go,  and  where  he  had  no  business  to  have  gone. 
He  was  only  the  cat,  I  admit.  But  he  might 
have  been  the  burglar  for  all  Trimmer  knew, 
and  —  what  then  ? 

As  I  look  back  and  think  of  these  things,  I 
am  afraid  we  imposed  upon  her.  At  the  time, 
we  had  twinges  of  conscience,  especially  when 
we  caught  her  "cutting  about"  with  more 
than  her  usual  zeal.  She  was  not  designed  by 
nature  to  "cut  about"  at  all.  To  grow  old 
with  her  meant  "to  lose  the  glory  of  the 
form."  She  was  short,  she  had  an  immense 
breadth  of  hip,  and  she  waddled  rather  than 
walked.  When,  in  her  haste,  her  cap  would 
get  tilted  to  one  side,  and  she  would  give  a 
smudge  to  her  nose  or  her  cheek,  she  was 
really  a  grotesque  little  figure,  and  the  twinges 
became  acute.  To  see  her  "cutting  about" 
so  unbecomingly  for  us  at  an  age  when  she 
should  have  been  allowed,  unburdened,  to 
crawl  towards  death,  was  to  shift  the  heaviest 
responsibility  to  our  shoulders  and  to  make  us 

46 


Trimmer 

the  one  barrier  between  her  and  the  work- 
house. We  could  not  watch  the  tragedy  of 
old  age  in  our  own  household  without  playing 
a  more  important  part  in  it  than  we  liked. 

Her  cheerfulness  was  the  greater  marvel 
when  I  learned  how  little  reason  life  had  given 
her  for  it.  In  her  rare  outbursts  of  confidence, 
with  excuses  for  the  liberty,  she  told  me  that 
she  was  London  born  and  bred,  that  she  had 
gone  into  service  young,  and  that  she  had 
married  before  she  was  twenty.  I  fancy  she 
must  have  been  pretty  as  a  girl.  I  know  she 
was  "bonny,"  and  "a  fine  one"  for  work,  and 
I  am  not  surprised  that  Trim  wanted  to  marry 
her.  He  was  a  skilled  plasterer  by  trade,  got 
good  wages,  and  was  seldom  out  of  a  job. 
They  had  a  little  house  in  some  far-away  mean 
street,  and  though  the  children  who  would 
have  been  welcome  never  came,  there  was 
little  else  to  complain  of. 

Trim  was  good  to  her,  that  is,  unless  he  was 
in  liquor,  which  I  gathered  he  mostly  was. 
He  was  fond  of  his  glass,  sociable-like,  and 
with  his  week's  wages  in  his  pocket,  could  not 
keep  away  from  his  pals  in  the  public.  Trim- 

47 


Our  House 

mer's  objection  to  beer  was  accounted  for 
when  I  discovered  that  Trim's  fondness  for  it 
often  kept  the  little  house  without  bread  and 
filled  it  with  curses.  There  were  never  blows. 
Trim  was  good,  she  reminded  me,  and  the 
liquor  never  made  him  wicked,  —  only  made 
him  leave  his  wife  to  starve,  and  then  curse  her 
for  starving.  She  was  tearful  with  gratitude 
when  she  remembered  his  goodness  in  not 
beating  her;  but  when  her  story  reached  the 
day  of  his  tumbling  off  a  high  ladder  —  the 
beer  was  in  his  legs  —  and  being  brought  back 
to  her  dead,  it  seemed  to  me  a  matter  of  re- 
joicing. Not  to  her,  however,  for  she  had  to 
give  up  the  little  house  and  go  into  service 
again,  and  she  missed  Trim  and  his  curses. 
She  did  not  complain.  She  always  found  good 
places,  and  she  adopted  a  little  boy,  a  sweet 
little  fellow,  like  a  son  to  her,  whom  she  sent 
to  school  and  started  in  life,  and  had  never 
seen  since.  But  young  men  will  be  young  men, 
and  she  loved  him.  She  was  very  happy  at 
the  corset  and  petticoat  shop,  where  she  lived 
while  he  was  with  her.  After  business  hours 
she  was  free,  for  apparently  the  responsibility 

48 


Trimmer 

of  being  alone  in  a  big  house  all  night  was  as 
simple  for  her  as  braving  a  burglar  in  our 
chambers.  The  young  ladies  were  pleasant, 
she  was  well  paid.  Then  her  older  brother's 
wife  died  and  left  him  with  six  children.  What 
could  she  do  but  go  and  look  after  them  when 
he  asked  her? 

He  was  well-to-do,  and  his  house  and  firing 
and  lighting  were  given  him  in  addition  to 
high  wages.  He  did  not  pay  her  anything,  of 
course,  —  she  was  his  sister.  But  it  was  a  com- 
fortable home,  the  children  were  fond  of  her, 
—  and  also  of  her  cakes  and  puddings,  — 
and  she  looked  forward  to  spending  the  rest 
of  her  days  there.  But  at  the  end  of  two  years 
he  married  again,  and  when  the  new  wife  came, 
the  old  sister  went.  This  was  how  it  came 
about  that,  without  a  penny  in  her  pocket, 
and  with  nothing  save  her  old  twisted  hands 
to  keep  her  out  of  the  workhouse,  she  was 
adrift  again  at  an  age  which  made  her  unde- 
sirable to  everybody  except  foolish  people  like 
ourselves,  fresh  from  the  horrors  of  our  expe- 
rience with  'Enrietter.  It  never  occurred  to 
Trimmer  that  there  was  anything  to  complain 

49 


Our  House 

of.  For  her,  all  had  always  been  for  the  best 
in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  That  she 
had  now  chanced  upon  chambers  and  two 
people  and  one  dissipated  cat  to  take  care  of, 
and  more  to  do  than  ought  to  have  been  asked 
of  her,  was  but  another  stroke  of  her  invariable 
good  luck. 

She  had  an  amazing  faculty  of  turning  all 
her  little  molehills  into  mountains  of  pleasure. 
I  have  never  known  anything  like  the  joy  she 
got  from  her  family,  though  I  never  could 
quite  make  out  why.  She  was  inordinately 
proud  of  the  brother  who  had  been  so  ready 
to  get  rid  of  her;  the  sister-in-law  who  had  re- 
placed her  was  a  paragon  of  virtue;  the  nieces 
were  so  many  infant  phenomena,  and  one 
Sunday  when,  with  the  South  London  world 
of  fashion,  they  were  walking  in  the  Embank- 
ment Gardens,  she  presumed  so  far  as  to  bring 
them  up  to  our  chambers  to  show  them  off  to 
me,  and  the  affectionate  glances  she  cast  upon 
their  expansive  lace  collars  explained  that  she 
still  had  her  uses  in  the  family.  There  was 
also  a  cousin  whom,  to  Trimmer's  embarrass- 
ment, I  often  found  in  our  kitchen;  but  much 

50 


Trimmer 

worse  than  frequent  visits  could  be  forgiven 
her,  since  it  was  she  who,  after  Jimmy's  in- 
glorious end,  brought  us  William  Penn,  a 
pussy  then  small  enough  to  go  into  her  coat- 
pocket,  but  already  gay  enough  to  dance  his 
way  straight  into  our  hearts. 

Trimmer's  pride  reached  high-water  mark 
when  it  came  to  a  younger  brother  who  trav- 
elled in  "notions"  for  a  city  firm.  His  pro- 
prietor was  the  personage  the  rich  Jew  always 
is  in  the  city  of  London,  and  was  made  Al- 
derman and  Lord  Mayor,  and  knighted  and 
baroneted,  during  the  years  Trimmer  spent 
with  us.  She  took  enormous  satisfaction  in 
the  splendour  of  this  success,  counting  it  an- 
other piece  of  her  good  luck  to  be  connected, 
however  remotely,  with  anybody  so  distin- 
guished. She  had  almost  an  air  of  proprie- 
torship on  the  Qth  of  November,  when  from 
our  windows  she  watched  his  Show  passing 
along  the  Embankment;  she  could  not  have 
been  happier  if  she  herself  had  been  seated 
in  the  gorgeous  Cinderella  coach,  with  the 
coachman  in  wig  and  cocked  hat,  and  the 
powdered  footmen  perched  up  behind;  and 


Our  House 

when  J.  went  to  the  Lord  Mayor's  dinner  that 
same  evening  at  the  Guildhall,  it  became  for 
her  quite  a  family  affair.  I  often  fancied  that 
she  thought  it  reflected  glory  on  us  all  to  have 
the  sister  of  a  man  who  travelled  in  "notions" 
for  a  knight  and  a  Lord  Mayor,  living  in  our 
chambers;  though  she  would  never  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  showing  it. 
;  Trimmer's  joy  was  only  less  in  our  friends 
than  in  her  family,  which  was  for  long  a  puzzle 
to  me.  They  added  considerably  to  her  al- 
ready heavy  task,  and  in  her  place,  I  should 
have  hated  them  for  it.  It  might  amuse  us  to 
have  them  drop  in  to  lunch  or  to  dinner  at  any 
time,  and  to  gather  them  together  once  a 
week,  on  Thursday  evening.  But  it  could 
hardly  amuse  Trimmer,  to  whose  share  fell 
the  problem  of  how  to  make  a  meal  prepared 
for  two  go  round  among  four  or  six,  or  how  to 
get  to  the  front  door  and  dispose  of  hats  and 
wraps  in  chambers  so  small  that  the  weekly 
gathering  filled  even  our  little  hall  to  over- 
flowing. There  was  always  some  one  to  help 
her  on  Thursdays,  and  she  had  not  much  to 
do  in  the  way  of  catering.  "Plain  living  and 

52 


Trimmer 

high  talking  "was  the  principle  upon  which  our 
evenings  were  run,  and  whoever  wanted  more 
than  a  sandwich  or  so  could  go  elsewhere. 
But  whatever  had  to  be  done,  Trimmer  in- 
sisted on  doing,  and,  moreover,  on  doing  it 
until  the  last  pipe  was  out  and  the  last  word 
spoken;  and  as  everybody  almost  was  an  artist 
or  a  writer,  and  as  there  is  no  subject  so  in- 
exhaustible as  "shop,"  I  do  not  like  to  re- 
member how  late  that  often  was.  It  made 
no  difference.  She  refused  to  go  to  bed,  and 
in  her  white  cap  and  apron,  with  her  air  of 
old  retainer  or  family  nurse,  she  would  waddle 
about  through  clouds  of  tobacco-smoke,  offer- 
ing a  box  of  cigarettes  here,  a  plate  of  sand- 
wiches there,  radiant,  benevolent,  more  often 
than  not  in  the  way,  toward  the  end  looking 
as  if  she  would  drop,  but  apparently  enjoying 
herself  more  than  anybody,  until  it  seemed 
as  if  the  unkindness  would  be  not  to  let  her 
stay  up  in  it. 

More  puzzling  to  me  than  her  interest  in  all 
our  friends  was  her  choice  of  a  few  for  her 
special  favour.  I  could  not  see  the  reason  for 
her  choice,  unless  I  had  suspected  her  of  a 

53 


Our  House 

sudden  passion  for  literature  and  art.  Cer- 
tainly her  chief  attentions  were  lavished  on 
the  most  distinguished  among  our  friends, 
who  were  the  very  people  most  apt  to  put  her 
devotion  to  the  test.  She  adored  Whistler, 
though  when  he  was  in  London  he  had  a  way 
not  only  of  dropping  in  to  dinner,  but  sometimes 
of  dropping  in  so  late  that  it  had  to  be  cooked 
all  over  again.  She  was  so  far  from  minding 
that,  at  the  familiar  sound  of  his  knock  and 
ring,  her  face  was  wreathed  in  smiles,  she 
seemed  to  look  upon  the  extra  work  as  a  priv- 
ilege, and  I  have  known  her,  without  a  word, 
trot  off  to  the  butcher's  or  the  green-grocer's, 
or  even  to  the  tobacconist's  in  the  Strand  for 
the  little  Algerian  cigarettes  he  loved.  She 
went  so  far  as  to  abandon  certain  of  her  pre- 
judices for  his  benefit,  and  I  realized  what  a 
conquest  he  had  made  when  she  resigned  her- 
self to  cooking  a  fowl  in  a  casserole  and  serv- 
ing it  without  bread-sauce.  She  discovered  the 
daintiness  of  his  appetite,  and  it  was  delight- 
ful to  see  her  hovering  over  him  at  table  and 
pointing  out  the  choice  bits  in  every  dish  she 
passed.  She  was  forever  finding  an  excuse  to 

54 


Trimmer 

come  into  any  room  where  he  might  be. 
Altogether,  it  was  as  complete  a  case  of  fasci- 
nation as  if  she  had  known  him  to  be  the  great 
master  he  was;  and  she  was  his  slave  long 
before  he  gave  her  the  ten  shillings,  which 
was  valued  sentimentally  as  I  really  believe 
a  tip  never  was  before  or  since  by  a  British 
servant. 

Henley  was  hardly  second  in  her  esteem, 
and  this  was  the  more  inexplicable  because 
he  provided  her  with  so  many  more  chances 
to  prove  it.  Whistler  then  lived  in  Paris,  and 
appeared  only  now  and  then.  Henley  lived  in 
London  half  the  week,  and  rarely  missed  a 
Thursday.  For  it  was  on  that  evening  that 
the  "National  Observer,"  which  he  was  edit- 
ing, went  to  press,  and  the  printers  in  Covent 
Garden  were  conveniently  near  to  our  cham- 
bers. His  work  done,  the  paper  put  to  bed, 
about  ten  or  eleven  he  and  the  train  of  young 
men  then  in  attendance  upon  him  would  come 
round;  and  to  them,  in  the  comfortable  con- 
sciousness that  the  rest  of  the  week  was  their 
own,  time  was  of  no  consideration.  Henley 
exulted  in  talk:  if  he  had  the  right  audience 

55 


Our  House 

he  would  talk  all  night;  and  the  right  audience 
was  willing  to  listen  so  long  as  he  talked  in 
our  chambers.  But  Trimmer,  in  the  kitchen, 
or  handing  round  sandwiches,  could  not  listen, 
and  yet  she  lingered  as  long  as  anybody.  It 
might  be  almost  dawn  before  he  got  up  to  go, 
but  she  was  there  to  fetch  him  his  crutch  and 
his  big  black  hat,  and  to  shut  the  door  after 
him.  Whatever  the  indiscretion  of  the  hour 
one  Thursday,  she  welcomed  him  as  cordially 
the  next,  or  any  day  in  between  when  inclina- 
tion led  him  to  toil  up  the  three  long  flights  of 
stairs  to  our  dinner-table. 

Phil  May  was  no  less  in  her  good  graces, 
and  his  hours,  if  anything,  were  worse  than 
Henley's,  since  the  length  of  his  stay  did  not 
depend  on  his  talk.  I  never  knew  a  man  of 
less  conversation.  "Have  a  drink,"  was  its 
extent  with  many  who  thought  themselves  in 
his  intimacy.  This  was  a  remark  which  he 
could  scarcely  offer  to  Trimmer  at  the  front 
door,  where  Whistler  and  Henley  never  failed 
to  exchange  with  her  a  friendly  greeting.  But 
all  the  same,  she  seemed  to  feel  the  charm 
which  his  admirers  liked  to  attribute  to  him, 

56 


Trimmer 

and  to  find  his  smile,  when  he  balanced  him- 
self on  the  back  of  a  chair,  more  than  a  sub- 
stitute for  conversation,  however  animated. 
The  flaw  in  my  enjoyment  of  his  company 
on  our  Thursdays  was  the  certainty  of  the 
length  of  time  he  would  be  pleased  to  bestow 
it  upon  us.  Trimmer  must  have  shared  this 
certainty,  but  to  her  it  never  mattered.  She 
never  failed  to  return  his  smile,  though  when 
he  got  down  to  go,  she  might  be  nodding,  and 
barely  able  to  drag  one  tired  old  foot  after 
the  other. 

She  made  as  much  of  "Bob"  Stevenson, 
whose  hours  were  worse  than  anybody's. 
We  would  perhaps  run  across  him  at  a  press 
view  of  pictures  in  the  morning  and  bring  him 
back  to  lunch,  he  protesting  that  he  must 
leave  immediately  after  to  get  home  to  Kew 
and  write  his  article  before  six  o'clock.  And 
then  he  would  begin  to  talk,  weaving  a  ro- 
mance of  any  subject  that  came  up,  —  the 
subject  was  nothing,  it  was  always  what  he 
made  of  it,  —  and  he  would  go  on  talking 
until  Trimmer,  overjoyed  at  the  chance,  came 
in  with  afternoon  tea;  and  he  would  go  on 

57 


Our  House 

talking  until  she  announced  dinner;  and  he 
would  go  on  talking  until  all  hours  the  next 
morning,  long  after  his  last  train  and  any 
possibility  of  his  article  getting  into  yesterday 
afternoon's  "  Pall  Mall."  But  early  as  he 
might  appear,  late  as  he  might  stay,  he  was 
never  too  early  or  too  late  for  Trimmer. 

These  were  her  favourites,  though  she  was 
ready  to  "  mother  "Beardsley,  who,  she  seemed 
to  think,  had  just  escaped  from  the  school- 
room and  ought  to  be  sent  back  to  it;  though 
she  had  a  protecting  eye  also  for  George 
Steevens,  just  up  from  Oxford,  evidently  mis- 
taking the  silence  which  was  then  his  habit  for 
shyness;  though,  indeed,  she  overflowed  with 
kindness  for  everbody  who  came.  It  was 
astonishing  how,  at  her  age,  she  managed  to 
adapt  herself  to  people  and  ways  so  unlike 
any  she  could  ever  have  known,  without  re- 
laxing in  the  least  from  her  own  code  of  con- 
duct. 

Only  twice  can  I  remember  seeing  her  really 
ruffled.  Once  was  when  Felix  Buhot,  who, 
during  a  long  winter  he  spent  in  London,  was 
often  with  us  on  Thursdays,  went  into  the 

58 


Trimmer 

kitchen  to  teach  her  to  make  coffee.  The  in- 
ference that  she  could  not  make  it  hurt  her 
feelings ;  but  her  real  distress  was  to  have  him 
in  the  kitchen,  which  "ladies  and  gentlemen" 
should  not  enter.  Between  her  desire  to  get 
him  back  to  the  dining-room  and  her  fear  lest 
he  should  discover  it,  she  was  terribly  embar- 
rassed. It  was  funny  to  watch  them:  Buhot, 
unconscious  of  wrong  and  of  English,  intent 
upon  measuring  the  coffee  and  pouring  out 
the  boiling  water;  Trimmer  fluttering  about 
him  with  flushed  and  anxious  face,  talking 
very  loud  and  with  great  deliberation,  in  the 
not  uncommon  conviction  that  the  foreigner's 
ignorance  of  English  is  only  a  form  of  deafness. 
On  the  other  occasion  she  lost  her  temper, 
the  only  time  in  my  experience.  It  was  a  Sun- 
day afternoon,  and  Whistler,  appearing  while 
she  was  out  and  staying  on  to  supper,  got 
Constant,  his  man,  to  add  an  onion  soup  and 
an  omelet  to  the  cold  meats  she  had  prepared, 
for  he  would  never  reconcile  himself  to  the 
English  supper.  She  was  furious  when  she  got 
back  and  found  that  her  pots  and  pans  had 
been  meddled  with,  and  her  larder  raided. 

59 


Our  House 

She  looked  upon  it  as  a  reproach;  as  if  she 
could  n't  serve  Mr.  Whistler  as  well  as  any 
foreign  servant,  —  she  had  no  use  for  foreign 
servants  anyhow,  —  she  would  not  have  them 
making  their  foreign  messes  in  any  kitchen  of 
hers!  It  took  days  and  careful  diplomacy  to 
convince  her  that  she  had  not  been  insulted. 

I  was  the  more  impressed  by  this  outbreak 
of  temper  because,  as  a  rule,  she  gave  no  sign 
of  seeing,  or  hearing,  or  understanding  any- 
thing that  went  on  in  our  chambers.  She 
treated  me  as  I  believe  royalty  should  be 
treated,  leaving  it  to  me  to  open  the  talk, 
or  to  originate  a  topic.  I  remember  once, 
when  we  were  involved  in  a  rumpus  which 
had  been  discussed  over  our  dinner-table  for 
months  beforehand,  and  which  at  the  time 
filled  the  newspapers  and  was  such  public 
property  that  everybody  in  the  Quarter  — 
the  milkman,  the  florist  at  the  Temple  of 
Pomona  in  the  Strand,  the  Housekeeper 
downstairs,  the  postman  —  congratulated  us 
on  our  victory,  Trimmer  alone  held  her  peace. 
I  could  not  believe  that  she  really  did  not 
know,  and  at  last  I  asked  her:  — 

60 


Trimmer 

"  I  suppose  you  have  heard,  Trimmer,  what 
has  been  going  on  these  days?" 

"What,  mum?"  was  her  answer. 

Then,  exasperated,  I  explained. 

"Why  yes,  mum,"  she  said.  "I  beg  your 
pardon,  mum,  I  really  could  n't  'elp  it.  I  'ave 
been  reading  the  pipers,  and  the  'ousekeeper 
she  was  a-talking  to  me  about  it  before  you 
come  in,  and  the  postman  too,  and  I  was  sayin' 
as  'ow  glad  I  was.  I  'ope  you  and  the  Master 
won't  think  it  a  liberty,  mum.  Thank  you, 
mum!" 

I  remember  another  time,  when  some  of 
our  friends  took  to  running  away  with  other 
friends'  wives,  and  things  became  so  compli- 
cated for  everybody  that  our  Thursday  even- 
ings were  brought  to  a  sudden  end,  Trimmer 
kept  the  same  stolid  countenance  through- 
out, until,  partly  to  prevent  awkwardness, 
partly  out  of  curiosity,  I  asked  her  if  she  had 
seen  the  papers. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,  mum,"  she  hesi- 
tated, "thank  you,  mum,  I'm  sure.  I  know 
it's  a  liberty,  but  you  know,  mum,  they've  all 
been  'ere  so  often  I  could  n't  help  noticing 

61 


Our  House 

there  was  somethink.  And  I'm  very  sorry, 
mum,  if  you  '11  excuse  the  liberty,  they  all  was 
such  lidies  and  gentlemen,  mum." 

And  so,  I  should  never  have  known  there 
was  another  reason,  besides  the  natural  kind- 
ness of  her  heart,  for  her  interest  in  our  friends 
and  her  acceptance  of  their  ways,  if,  before 
this,  I  had  not  happened  to  say  to  her  one 
Friday  morning,  — 

"You  seem,  Trimmer,  to  have  a  very  great 
admiration  for  Mr.  Phil  May." 

"I  'ope  you  and  Master  won't  think  it  a 
liberty,  mum,"  she  answered,  in  an  agony  of 
embarrassment,  "but  I  do  like  to  see  'im,  and 
they  allus  so  like  to  'ear  about  'im  at  'ome. 
They're  allus  asking  me  when  I  'ave  last  seen 
'im  or  Mr.  Whistler." 

Then  it  came  out.  Chance  had  bestowed 
upon  her  father  and  one  of  the  great  American 
magazines  the  same  name,  with  the  result 
that  the  magazine  was  looked  upon  by  her 
brothers  and  herself  as  belonging  somehow  to 
the  family.  The  well-to-do  brother  sub- 
scribed to  it,  the  other  came  to  his  house  to  see 
each  new  number.  Through  the  illustrations 

62 


Trimmer 

and  articles  they  had  become  as  familiar  with 
artists  and  authors  as  most  people  in  England 
are  with  the  "winners,"  and  their  education 
had  reached  at  least  the  point  of  discovery  that 
news  does  not  begin  and  end  in  sport.  Judg- 
ing from  Trimmer,  I  doubt  if  at  first  their 
patronage  of  art  and  literature  went  much 
further,  but  this  was  far  enough  for  them  to 
know,  and  to  feel  flattered  by  the  knowledge, 
that  she  was  living  among  people  who  figured 
in  the  columns  of  art  and  literary  gossip  as 
prominently  as  "all  the  winners"  in  the 
columns  of  the  Sporting  Prophets,  though  they 
would  have  been  still  more  flattered  had  her  lot 
been  cast  among  the  Prophets.  In  a  few  cases, 
their  interest  soon  became  more  personal. 

It  was  their  habit  —  why,  I  do  not  suppose 
they  could  have  said  themselves  —  to  read 
any  letter  Whistler  might  write  to  the  papers 
at  a  moment  when  he  was  given  to  writing, 
though  what  they  made  of  the  letter  when  read 
was  more  than  Trimmer  was  able  to  explain; 
they  also  looked  out  for  Phil  May's  drawings  in 
"Punch";  they  passed  our  articles  round  the 
family  circle,  —  a  compliment  hardly  more  as- 

63 


Our  House 

tonishing  to  Trimmer  than  to  us.  As  time  went 
on  they  began  to  follow  the  career  of  several  of 
our  other  friends  to  whom  Trimmer  introduced 
them;  and  it  was  a  gratification  to  them  all, 
as  well  as  a  triumph  for  her,  when  on  Sun- 
day afternoon  she  could  say,  "Mr.  Crockett 
or  Mr.  'Arold  Frederic  was  at  Master's  last 
Thursday."  Thus,  through  us,  she  became  for 
the  first  time  a  person  of  importance  in  her 
brother's  house,  and  I  suspect  also  quite  an 
authority  in  Brixton  on  all  questions  of  art 
and  literature.  Indeed,  she  may,  for  all  I 
know,  have  started  another  Carnegie  Library 
in  South  London. 

It  is  a  comfort  now  to  think  that  her  stay 
with  us  was  pleasant  to  her;  wages  alone  could 
not  have  paid  our  debt  for  the  trouble  she 
spared  us  during  her  five  years  in  our  cham- 
bers. I  have  an  idea  that,  in  every  way,  it  was 
the  most  prosperous  period  of  her  life.  When 
she  came,  she  was  not  only  without  a  penny  in 
her  pocket,  but  she  owed  pounds  for  her  outfit 
of  aprons  and  caps  and  dresses.  Before  she 
left,  she  was  saving  money.  She  opened  a  book 
at  the  Post  Office  Savings  Bank;  she  subscribed 

64 


Trimmer 

to  one  of  those  societies  which  would  assure  her 
a  respectable  funeral,  for  she  had  the  ambition 
of  all  the  self-respecting  poor  to  be  put  away 
decent,  after  having,  by  honest  work,  kept 
off  the  parish  to  the  end.  Her  future  provided 
for,  she  could  make  the  most  of  whatever 
pleasures  the  present  might  throw  in  her  way, 
—  the  pantomime  at  Christmas,  a  good  seat 
for  the  Queen's  Jubilee  procession;  above  all, 
the  two  weeks'  summer  holiday.  No  journey 
was  ever  so  full  of  adventure  as  hers  to  Mar- 
gate, or  Yarmouth,  or  Hastings,  from  the  first 
preparation  to  the  moment  of  return,  when 
she  would  appear  laden  with  presents  of  Yar- 
mouth bloaters  or  Margate  shrimps,  to  be 
divided  between  the  old  charwoman  and  our- 
selves. 

If  she  had  no  desire  to  leave  us,  we  had 
none  to  have  her  go;  and  as  the  years  passed, 
we  did  not  see  why  she  should.  She  was  old, 
but  she  bore  her  age  with  vigour.  She  was 
hardly  ever  ill,  and  never  with  anything 
worse  than  a  cold  or  an  indigestion,  though 
she  had  an  inconvenient  talent  for  accidents. 
The  way  she  managed  to  cut  her  fingers  was 

65 


Our  House 

little  short  of  genius.  One  or  two  were  always 
wrapped  in  rags.  But  no  matter  how  deep  the 
gash,  she  was  as  cheerful  as  if  it  were  an  accom- 
plishment. With  the  blood  pouring  from  the 
wound,  she  would  beam  upon  me:  "You  'ave 
no  idea,  mum,  what  wonderful  flesh  I  'as  fur 
'ealin'."  Her  success  in  falling  down  our  little 
narrow  stairway  was  scarcely  less  remarkable. 
But  the  worst  tumble  of  all  was  the  one  which 
J.  had  so  long  expected.  He  had  just  moved 
his  portfolios  to  an  unaccustomed  place  one 
morning,  when  a  letter,  or  a  message,  or  some- 
thing, sent  her  stumbling  into  the  studio  with 
her  usual  impetuosity,  and  over  she  tripped. 
It  was  so  bad  that  we  had  to  have  the  doctor, 
her  arm  was  so  seriously  strained  that  he  made 
her  carry  it  in  a  sling  for  weeks.  We  were 
alarmed,  but  not  Trimmer. 

"You  know,  mum,  it  is  lucky;  it  might  'ave 
been  the  right  harm,  and  that  would  'ave  been 
bad!" 

She  really  thought  it  another  piece  of  her 
extraordinary  good  luck. 

Poor  Trimmer!  It  needed  so  little  to  make 
her  happy,  and  within  five  years  of  her  coming 

66 


Trimmer 

to  us  that  little  was  taken  from  her.  All  she 
asked  of  life  was  work,  and  a  worse  infirmity 
than  age  put  a  stop  to  her  working  for  us,  or 
for  anybody  else,  ever  again.  At  the  beginning 
of  her  trouble,  she  would  not  admit  to  us,  nor 
I  fancy  to  herself,  that  anything  was  wrong, 
and  she  was  "bonny,"  though  she  went  "cut- 
ting about"  at  a  snail's  pace  and  her  cheerful 
old  face  grew  haggard.  Presently,  there  were 
days  when  she  could  not  keep  up  the  pretence, 
and  then  she  said  her  head  ached  and  she 
begged  my  pardon  for  the  liberty.  I  consulted 
a  doctor.  He  thought  it  might  be  neuralgia 
and  dosed  her  for  it;  she  thought  it  her  teeth, 
and  had  almost  all  the  few  still  left  to  her 
pulled  out.  And  the  pain  was  worse  than  ever. 
Then,  as  we  were  on  the  point  of  leaving  town 
for  some  weeks,  we  handed  over  our  chambers 
to  the  frowzy  old  charwoman,  and  sent  Trim- 
mer down  to  the  sea  at  Hastings.  She  was 
waiting  to  receive  us  when  we  returned,  but 
she  gave  us  only  the  ghost  of  her  old  smile  in 
greeting,  and  her  face  was  more  haggard  and 
drawn  than  ever.  For  a  day  she  tottered  about 
from  one  room  to  another^  cooking,  dusting, 

67 


Our  House 

making  beds,  and  looking  all  the  while  as  if 
she  were  on  the  rack.  She  was  a  melancholy 
wreck  of  the  old  cheerful,  bustling,  exasper- 
ating Trimmer;  and  it  was  more  than  we  could 
stand.  I  told  her  so.  She  forgot  to  beg  my 
pardon  for  the  liberty  in  her  hurry  to  assure 
me  that  nothing  was  wrong,  that  she  could 
work,  that  she  wanted  to  work,  that  she  was 
not  happy  when  she  did  not  work. 

"Oh,  I'm  bonny,  mum,  I'm  bonny!"  she 
kept  saying  over  and  over  again. 

Her  despair  at  the  thought  of  stopping 
work  was  more  cruel  to  see  than  her  physical 
torture,  and  I  knew,  without  her  telling  me, 
that  her  fear  of  the  pain  she  might  have  still  to 
suffer  was  nothing  compared  to  her  fear  of 
the  workhouse  she  had  toiled  all  her  life  to 
keep  out  of.  She  had  just  seven  pounds  and 
fifteen  shillings  for  her  fortune;  her  family,  be- 
ing working  people,  would  have  no  use  for  her 
once  she  was  of  no  use  to  them;  our  chambers 
were  her  home  only  so  long  as  she  could  do 
in  them  what  she  had  agreed  to  do;  there  was 
no  Workmen's  Compensation  Act  in  those 
days,  no  old-age  pensions,  even  if  she  had  been 

68 


Trimmer 

old  enough  to  get  one.  What  was  left  for  a 
poor  woman,  full  of  years  and  pain,  save  the 
one  refuge  which,  all  her  life,  she  had  been 
taught  to  look  upon  as  scarcely  less  shameful 
than  the  prison  or  the  scaffold? 

Well,  Trimmer  had  done  her  best  for  us;  now 
we  did  our  best  for  her,  and,  as  it  turned  out, 
the  best  that  could  be  done.  Through  a  friend, 
we  got  her  into  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital. 
Her  case  was  hopeless  from  the  first.  A  malig- 
nant growth  so  close  to  the  brain  that  at  her 
age  an  operation  was  too  serious  a  risk,  and 
without  it  she  might  linger  in  agony  for 
months,  —  this  was  what  life  had  been  hold- 
ing in  store  for  Trimmer  during  those  long 
years  of  incessant  toil,  and  self-sacrifice,  and 
obstinate  belief  that  a  drunken  husband,  a 
selfish  brother,  an  empty  purse,  were  all  for 
the  best  in  our  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 

She  did  not  know  how  ill  she  was,  and  her 
first  weeks  at  the  hospital  were  happy.  The 
violence  of  the  pain  was  relieved,  the  poor 
tired  old  body  was  the  better  for  the  rest  and 
the  cool  and  the  quiet;  she  who  had  spent  her 
strength  waiting  on  others  enjoyed  the  novel 

69 


Our  House 

experience  of  being  waited  on  herself.  There 
were  the  visits  of  her  family  on  visiting  days, 
and  mine  in  between,  to  look  forward  to;  some 
of  our  friends,  who  had  grown  as  fond  of  her 
as  we,  sent  her  fruit  and  flowers,  and  she  liked 
the  consequence  all  this  gave  her  in  the  ward. 
Then,  the  hospital  gossip  was  a  distraction,  per- 
haps because  in  talking  about  the  sufferings  of 
others  she  could  forget  her  own.  My  objection 
was  that  she  would  spare  me  not  a  single  de- 
tail. But  in  some  curious  way  I  could  not 
fathom,  it  seemed  a  help  to  Trimmer,  and  I 
had  not  the  heart  to  cut  her  stories  short. 

After  a  month  or  so,  the  reaction  came.  Her 
head  was  no  better,  and  what  was  the  hospital 
good  for  if  they  could  n't  cure  her?  She  grew 
suspicious,  hinting  dark  things  to  me  about  the 
doctors.  They  were  keeping  her  there  to  try 
experiments  on  her,  and  she  was  a  respectable 
woman,  and  always  had  been,  and  she  did  not 
like  to  be  stared  at  in  her  bed  by  a  lot  of  young 
fellows.  The  nurses  were  as  bad.  But  once 
out  of  their  clutches  she  would  be  "bonny" 
again,  she  knew.  Probably  the  doctors  and 
nurses  knew  too,  for  the  same  suspicion  is 

70 


Trimmer 

more  often  than  not  their  reward;  and  indeed 
it  was  so  unlike  Trimmer  that  she  must  have 
picked  it  up  in  the  ward.  Anyway,  in  their 
kindness  they  had  .kept  her  far  longer  than 
is  usual  in  such  cases,  and  when  they  saw  her 
grow  restless  and  unhappy,  it  seemed  best  to  let 
her  go.  At  the  end  of  four  months,  and  to  her 
infinite  joy,  Trimmer,  five  years  older  than  when 
she  came  to  us,  in  the  advanced  stage  of  an  in- 
curable disease,  with  a  capital  of  seven  pounds 
and  fifteen  shillings,  was  free  to  begin  life  again. 
I  pass  quickly  over  the  next  weeks, —  I  wish 
I  could  have  passed  over  them  as  quickly  at  the 
time.  My  visits  were  now  to  a  drab  quarter  on 
the  outskirts  of  Camden  Town,  where  Trimmer 
had  set  up  as  a  capitalist.  She  boarded  with 
her  cousin,  many  shillings  of  her  little  store 
going  to  pay  the  weekly  bill;  she  found  a  won- 
derful doctor  who  promised  to  cure  her  in 
no  time,  and  into  his  pockets  the  rest  of  her 
savings  flowed.  There  was  no  persuading  her 
that  he  could  not  succeed  where  the  doctors  at 
the  hospital  had  failed,  and  so  long  as  she  went 
to  him,  to  help  her  would  only  have  meant 
more  shillings  for  an  unscrupulous  quack  who 


Our  House 

traded  on  the  ignorance  and  credulity  of  the 
poor.  Week  by  week  I  saw  her  grow  feebler, 
week  by  week  I  knew  her  little  capital  was 
dribbling  fast  away.  She  seemed  haunted  by 
the  dread  that  her  place  would  be  taken  in 
our  chambers,  and  that,  once  cured,  she  would 
have  to  hunt  for  another.  That  she  was 
"bonny"  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  all 
she  had  to  say.  One  morning,  to  prove  it,  she 
managed  to  drag  herself  down  to  see  us, 
arriving  with  just  strength  enough  to  stagger 
into  my  room,  her  arms  outstretched  to  feel 
her  way,  for  the  disease,  by  this  time,  was  af- 
fecting both  eyes  and  brain.  Nothing  would 
satisfy  her  until  she  had  gone  into  the  studio, 
stumbling  about  among  the  portfolios,  I  on 
one  side,  on  the  other  J.,  with  no  desire  to 
wring  her  neck  for  it  was  grim  tragedy  we 
were  guiding  between  us,  —  tragedy  in  rusty 
black  with  a  reticule  hanging  from  one  arm,  — 
five  years  nearer  the  end  than  when  first  the 
curtain  rose  upon  it  in  our  chambers.  We 
bundled  her  off  as  fast  as  we  could,  in  a  cab, 
with  the  cousin  who  had  brought  her.  She 
stopped  in  the  doorway. 

72 


Trimmer 

"Oh,  I'm  bonny,  mum.  I  can  cut  about, 
you'll  see!"  And  she  would  have  fallen,  had 
not  the  cousin  caught  and  steadied  her. 

After  that,  she  had  not  the  strength  to  drag 
herself  anywhere,  not  even  to  see  the  quack. 
A  week  later  she  took  to  her  bed,  almost  blind, 
her  poor  old  wits  scattered  beyond  recovery. 
I  was  glad  of  that:  it  spared  her  the  weary 
waiting  and  watching  for  death  while  the 
shadow  of  the  grim  building  she  feared  still 
more  drew  ever  nearer.  I  hesitated  to  go  and 
see  her,  for  my  mere  presence  stirred  her  into 
consciousness,  and  reminded  her  of  her  need 
to  work  and  her  danger  if  she  could  not. 
Then  there  was  a  day  when  she  did  not  seem 
to  know  I  was  there,  and  she  paid  no  attention 
to  me,  never  spoke  until  just  as  I  was  going, 
when  of  a  sudden  she  sat  bolt  upright:  — 

"Oh,  I 'm  bonny,  mum,  I 'm  bonny.  You '11 
see!"  she  wailed,  and  sank  back  on  her  pil- 
lows. 

These  were  Trimmer's  last  words  to  me, 
and  I  left  her  at  death's  door,  still  crying  for 
work,  as  if  in  the  next  world,  as  in  this,  it  was 
her  only  salvation.  Very  soon,  the  cousin 

73 


Our  House 

came  to  tell  me  that  the  little  capital  had 
dribbled  entirely  away,  and  that  she  could  not 
keep  Trimmer  without  being  paid  for  it. 
Could  I  blame  her?  She  had  her  own  fight 
against  the  shadow  hanging  all  too  close  now 
over  Trimmer.  Her  'usband  worked  'ard,  she 
said,  and  they  could  just  live  respectable,  and 
Trimmer's  brothers,  they  was  for  sending 
Trimmer  to  the  workus.  They  might  have 
sent  her,  and  I  doubt  if  she  would  have  been 
the  wiser.  But  could  we  see  her  go?  For  our 
own  comfort,  for  our  own  peace  of  mind,  we 
interfered  and  arranged  that  Trimmer  should 
board  with  her  cousin  until  a  bed  was  found 
in  another  hospital.  It  was  found,  mercifully, 
almost  at  once,  but,  before  I  had  time  to  go 
there,  the  Great  Release  had  come  for  her;  and 
we  heard  with  thankfulness  that  the  old  head 
was  free  from  suffering,  that  the  twisted  hands 
were  still,  that  fear  of  the  workhouse  could 
trouble  her  no  more.  Life's  one  gift  to  Trim- 
mer had  been  toil,  pain  her  one  reward,  and  it 
was  good  to  know  that  she  was  at  rest. 

The  cousin  brought  us  the  news.   But  I  had 
a  visit  the  same  day  from  the  sister-in-law,  the 

74 


Trimmer 

paragon  of  virtue,  a  thin,  sharp-faced  woman 
of  middle  age.  I  said  what  I  could  in  sym- 
pathy, telling  her  how  much  we  missed  Trim- 
mer, how  well  we  should  always  remember 
her.  But  this  was  not  what  she  had  come  to 
hear.  She  let  me  get  through.  She  drew  the 
sigh  appropriate  for  the  occasion.  Then  she 
settled  down  to  business.  When  did  I  pro- 
pose to  pay  back  the  money  Trimmer  had 
spent  on  the  doctor  in  Camden  Town?  I 
did  n't  propose  to  at  all,  I  told  her:  he  was  a 
miserable  quack  and  I  had  done  my  best  to 
keep  Trimmer  from  going  to  him;  besides, 
fortunately  for  her,  she  was  beyond  the  reach 
of  money  that  was  not  owing  to  her.  The  sis- 
ter-in-law was  indignant.  The  family  always 
understood  I  had  promised,  a  promise  was  a 
promise,  and  now  they  depended  on  me  for 
the  funeral.  I  reminded  her  of  the  society  to 
which  Trimmer  had  subscribed  solely  to  meet 
that  expense.  But  she  quickly  let  me  know 
that  the  funeral  the  society  proposed  to  pro- 
vide fell  far  short  of  the  family's  standard. 
To  them  it  appeared  scarcely  better  than  a 
pauper's.  The  coffin  would  be  plain,  there 

75 


Our  House 

would  be  no  oak  and  brass  handles,  —  worse, 
there  would  be  no  plumes  for  the  horses  and  the 
hearse.  To  send  their  sister  to  her  grave  with- 
out plumes  would  disgrace  them  before  their 
neighbours.  Nor  would  there  be  a  penny  over 
for  the  family  mourning,  —  could  I  allow  them, 
the  chief  mourners,  to  mourn  without  crape? 
I  remembered  their  willingness  to  let  Trim- 
mer die  as  a  pauper  in  the  workhouse.  After 
all,  she  would  have  the  funeral  she  had  pro- 
vided for.  She  would  lie  no  easier  in  her  grave 
for  oak  and  brass  handles,  for  plumes  and 
crape.  Her  family  had  made  use  of  her  all  her 
life;  I  did  not  see  why  I  should  help  them  to 
make  use  of  her  after  her  death,  that  their 
grief  might  be  trumpeted  in  Brixton  and 
Camden  Town.  I  brought  the  interview  to 
an  end.  But  sometimes  I  wonder  if  Trimmer 
would  not  have  liked  it  better  if  I  had  helped 
them,  if  plumes  had  waved  from  the  heads  of 
the  horses  that  drew  her  to  her  grave,  if  her 
family  had  followed  swathed  in  crape.  She 
would  have  looked  upon  it  as  another  piece 
of  her  extraordinary  good  luck  if,  by  dying, 
she  had  been  of  service  to  anybody. 

76 


Trimmer 

I  do  not  know  where  they  buried  her. 
Probably  nobody  save  ourselves  to-day  has  as 
much  as  a  thought  for  her.  But,  if  self-sacri- 
fice counts  for  anything,  if  martyrdom  is  a 
passport  to  heaven,  then  Trimmer  should 
take  her  place  up  there  by  the  side  of  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  and  Joan  of  Arc,  and  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  and  all  those  other  blessed 
men  and  women  whose  lives  were  given  for 
others,  and  who  thought  it  was  "bonny." 


Ill 

Louise 


Ill 


LOUISE 

FOR  the  third  time  since  we  had  taken  our 
chambers,  I  was  servantless,  and  I  could  not 
summon  up  courage  to  face  for  the  third  time 
the  scorn  which  the  simple  request  for  a 
"general"  meets  in  the  English  Registry 
Office.  That  was  what  sent  me  to  try  my  luck 
at  a  French  Bureau  in  Soho,  where,  I  was  given 
to  understand,  it  was  possible  to  inquire  for, 
and  actually  obtain,  a  good  bonne  a  tout  faire 
and  escape  without  insult. 

Louise  was  announced  one  dull  November 
morning,  a  few  days  later.  I  found  her  waiting 
for  me  in  our  little  hall,  —  a  woman  of  about 
forty,  short,  plump,  with  black  eyes,  blacker 
hair,  and  an  enchanting  smile.  But  the 
powder  on  her  face  and  the  sham  diamonds  in 
her  ears  seemed  to  hang  out  danger  signals, 
and  my  first  impulse  was  to  show  her  the  door. 
It  was  something  familiar  in  the  face  under 

81 


Our  House 

the  powder,  above  all  in  the  voice  when  she 
spoke,  that  made  me  hesitate. 

"Provencale?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  from  Marseilles,"  she  answered,  and 
I  showed  her  instead  into  my  room. 

I  had  often  been  "down  there"  where  the 
sun  shines  and  skies  are  blue,  and  her  Pro- 
vencal accent  came  like  a  breath  from  the 
south  through  the  gloom  of  the  London  fog, 
bringing  it  all  back  to  me,  —  the  blinding 
white  roads,  the  gray  hills  sweet  with  thyme 
and  lavender,  the  towns  with  their  "antiqui- 
ties," the  little  shining  white  villages,  —  M. 
Bernard's  at  Martigues,  and  his  dining-room, 
and  the  Marseillais  who  crowded  it  on  a  Sun- 
day morning,  and  the  gaiety  and  the  laughter, 
and  Desire  in  his  white  apron,  and  the  great 
bowls  of  bouillabaisse  .  .  . 

It  was  she  who  recalled  me  to  the  business 
of  the  moment.  Her  name  was  Louise  Sorel, 
she  said;  she  could  clean,  wash,  play  the  lady's 
maid,  sew,  market,  cook  —  but  cook !  Te  — 
aumouins,  she  would  show  Madame;  and,  as  she 
said  it,  she  smiled.  I  have  never  seen  such 
perfect  teeth  in  woman  or  child;  you  knew 

82 


Louise 

at  a  glance  that  she  must  have  been  a  radiant 
beauty  in  her  youth.  A  Provencal  accent,  an 
enchanting  smile,  and  the  remains  of  beauty, 
however,  are  not  precisely  what  you  engage 
a  servant  for;  and,  with  a  sudden  access  of 
common  sense,  I  asked  for  references.  Surely, 
Madame  would  not  ask  the  impossible,  she 
said  reproachfully.  She  had  but  arrived  in 
London,  she  had  never  gone  asbonne anywhere; 
how,  then,  could  she  give  references?  She 
needed  the  work  and  was  willing  to  do  it: 
was  not  that  sufficient  ?  I  got  out  of  it  meanly 
by  telling  her  I  would  think  it  over.  At  that 
she  smiled  again,  —  really,  her  smile  on  a 
November  day  almost  warranted  the  risk. 
I  meant  to  take  her;  she  knew;  Madame  was 
kind. 

I  did  think  it  over,  —  while  I  interviewed 
slovenly  English  "generals"  and  stray  Italian 
children,  dropped  upon  me  from  Heaven  knows 
where,  while  I  darned  the  family  stockings, 
while  I  ate  the  charwoman's  chops.  I  thought 
it  over  indeed,  far  more  than  I  wanted  to, 
until,  in  despair,  I  returned  to  the  Soho 
Bureau  to  complain  that  I  was  still  without 

83 


Our  House 

a  servant  of  any  kind.  The  first  person  I  saw 
was  Louise;  disconsolate,  on  a  chair  in  the 
corner.  She  sprang  up  when  she  recognized 
me.  Had  she  not  said  Madame  was  kind? 
she  cried.  Madame  had  come  for  her.  I  had 
done  nothing  of  the  sort.  But  there  she  was, 
this  charming  creature  from  the  South;  at 
home  was  the  charwoman,  dingy  and  dreary 
as  the  November  skies.  To  look  back  now  is 
to  wonder  why  I  did  not  jump  at  the  chance 
of  having  her.  As  it  was,  I  did  take  her,  — 
no  references,  powder,  sham  diamonds,  and 
all.  But  I  compromised.  It  was  to  be  for  a 
week.  After  that,  we  should  see.  An  hour 
later  she  was  in  my  kitchen. 

A  wonderful  week  followed.  From  the  start 
we  could  not  resist  her  charm,  though  to  be 
on  such  terms  with  one's  servant  as  to  know 
that  she  has  charm,  is  no  doubt  the  worst 
possible  kind  of  bad  form.  Even  William 
Penn,  the  fastidious,  was  her  slave  at  first 
sight,  —  and  it  would  have  been  rank  ingrati- 
tude if  he  had  not  been,  for,  from  the  ordinary 
London  tabby  average  people  saw  in  him,  he 
was  at  once  transformed  into  the  most  superb, 

84 


Louise 

the  most  magnificent  of  cats!  And  we  were 
all  superb,  we  were  all  magnificent,  down  to 
the  snuffy,  tattered  old  Irish  charwoman  who 
came  to  make  us  untidy  three  times  a  week, 
and  whom  we  had  not  the  heart  to  turn  out, 
because  we  knew  that  if  we  did,  there  could 
be  no  one  else  foolish  enough  to  take  her  in 
again. 

And  Louise,  though  her  southern  imagina- 
tion did  such  great  things  for  us,  had  not  over- 
rated herself.  She  might  be  always  laughing 
at  everything,  as  they  always  do  laugh  "down 
there,"  —  at  the  English  she  could  n't  under- 
stand, at  Mize  Bourn,  the  nearest  she  came 
to  the  charwoman's  name,  at  the  fog  she  must 
have  hated,  at  the  dirt  left  for  her  to  clean. 
But  she  worked  harder  than  any  servant  I 
have  ever  had,  and  to  better  purpose.  She 
adored  the  cleanliness  and  the  order,  it  seemed, 
and  was  appalled  at  the  dirt  and  slovenliness 
of  the  English,  as  every  Frenchwoman  is  when 
she  comes  to  the  land  that  has  not  ceased  to 
brag  of  its  cleanliness  since  its  own  astonished 
discovery  of  the  morning  tub.  Before  Louise, 
the  London  blacks  disappeared  as  if  by  magic. 

85 


Our  House 

Our  wardrobes  were  overhauled  and  set  to 
rights.  The  linen  was  mended  and  put  in 
place.  And  she  could  cook!  Such  risotto!  — 
she  had  been  in  Italy —  Such  macaroni!  Such 
bouillabaisse!  Throughout  that  wonderful 
week,  our  chambers  smelt  as  strong  of  ail  as 
a  Proven£al  kitchen. 

In  the  face  of  all  this,  I  do  not  see  how  I 
brought  myself  to  find  any  fault.  To  do  myself 
justice,  I  never  did  when  it  was  a  question  of 
the  usual  domestic  conventions.  Louise  was 
better  than  all  the  conventions  —  all  the  prim 
English  maids  in  prim  white  caps  —  in  the 
world.  Just  to  hear  her  talk,  just  to  have  her 
call  that  disreputable  old  Mize  Bourn  ma 
belle,  just  to  have  her  announce  as  La  Dame  de 
la  bouillabaisse  a  friend  of  ours  who  had  been 
to  Provence  and  had  come  to  feast  on  her 
masterpiece  and  praised  her  for  it,  —  just 
each  and  every  one  of  her  charming  southern 
ways  made  up  for  the  worst  domestic  crime 
she  could  have  committed,  I  admit  to  a  spasm 
of  dismay  when,  for  the  first  meal  she  served, 
she  appeared  in  her  petticoat,  a  dish-cloth  for 
apron,  and  her  sleeves  rolled  up  above  her 

86 


Louise 

elbows.  But  I  forgot  it  with  her  delightful 
laugh  at  herself  when  I  explained  that,  ab- 
surdly it  might  be,  we  preferred  a  skirt,  an 
apron,  and  sleeves  fastened  at  the  wrists.  It 
seemed  she  adored  the  economy  too,  and  she 
had  wished  to  protect  her  dress  and  even  her 
apron. 

These  things  would  horrify  the  model  house- 
wife; but  then,  I  am  not  a  model  housewife, 
and  they  amused  me,  especially  as  she  was 
so  quick  to  meet  me,  not  only  half,  but  the 
whole  way.  When,  however,  she  took  to  run- 
ning out  at  intervals  on  mysterious  errands, 
I  felt  that  I  must  object.  Her  first  excuse  was 
les  affaires;  her  next,  a  friend;  and,  when 
neither  of  these  would  serve,  she  owned  up  to 
a  husband  who,  apparently,  spent  his  time 
waiting  for  her  at  the  street  corner;  he  was  so 
lonely,  le  pauvre!  I  suggested  that  he  should 
come  and  see  her  in  the  kitchen.  She  laughed 
outright.  Why,  he  was  of  a  shyness  Madame 
could  not  figure  to  herself.  He  never  would 
dare  to  mount  the  stairs  and  ring  the  front 
doorbell. 

In  the  course  of  this  wonderful  week,  there 
87. 


Our  House 

was  sent  to  me,  from  the  Soho  Bureau,  a  Swiss 
girl  with  as  many  references  as  a  Colonial 
Dame  has  grandfathers.  Even  so,  and  despite 
the  inconvenient  husband,  I  might  not  have 
dismissed  Louise,  —  it  was  so  pleasant  to  live 
in  an  atmosphere  of  superlatives  and  ail.  It 
was  she  who  settled  the  matter  with  some 
vague  story  of  a  partnership  in  a  restaurant 
and  work  waiting  for  her  there.  Perhaps  we 
should  have  parted  with  an  affectation  of  in- 
difference had  not  J.  unexpectedly  interfered. 
Husbands  have  a  trick  of  pretending  supe- 
riority to  details  of  housekeeping  until  you 
have  had  all  the  bother,  and  then  upsetting 
everything  by  their  interference.  She  had 
given  us  the  sort  of  time  we  had  n't  had  since 
the  old  days  in  Provence,  he  argued;  her  smile 
alone  was  worth  double  the  money  agreed 
upon;  therefore,  double  the  money  was  the 
least  I  could  in  decency  offer  her.  His  logic 
was  irreproachable,  but  housekeeping  on  such 
principles  would  end  in  domestic  bankruptcy. 
However,  Louise  got  the  money,  and  my  re- 
ward was  her  face  when  she  thanked  me  — 
she  made  giving  sheer  self-indulgence  —  and 

88 


Louise 

the  risotto  which,  in  the  shock  of  gratitude, 
she  insisted  upon  coming  the  next  day  to  cook 
for  us. 

But,  in  the  end,  J.'s  indiscretion  cost  me 
dear.  As  Louise  was  determined  to  magnify 
all  our  geese,  not  merely  into  swans,  but  into 
the  most  superb,  the  most  magnificent  swans, 
the  few  extra  shillings  had  multiplied  so 
miraculously  by  the  time  their  fame  reached 
the  Quartier,  that  Madame  of  the  Bureau  saw 
in  me  a  special  Providence  appointed  to  re- 
lieve her  financial  difficulties,  and  hurried  to 
claim  an  immediate  loan.  Then,  her  claim 
being  disregarded,  she  wrote  to  call  my  atten- 
tion to  the  passing  of  the  days  and  the  miser- 
able pettiness  of  the  sum  demanded,  and  to 
assure  me  of  her  consideration  the  most  per- 
fect. She  got  to  be  an  intolerable  nuisance 
before  I  heard  the  last  of  her. 

We  had  not  realized  the  delight  of  having 
Louise  to  take  care  of  us,  u,ntil  she  was  re- 
placed by  the  Swiss  girl,  who  was  industrious, 
sober,  well-trained,  with  all  the  stolidity  and 
surliness  of  her  people,  and  as  colourless  as  a 
self-respecting  servant  ought  to  be.  I  was 

89 


Our  House 

immensely  relieved  when,  after  a  fortnight, 
she  found  the  work  too  much  for  her.  It  was 
just  as  she  was  on  the  point  of  going  that 
Louise  reappeared,  her  face  still  white  with 
powder,  the  sham  diamonds  still  glittering  in 
her  ears,  but  somehow  changed,  I  could  not 
quite  make  out  how.  She  had  come,  she  ex- 
plained to  present  me  with  a  ring  of  pearls  and 
opals  and  of  surpassing  beauty,  at  the  moment 
pawned  for  a  mere  trifle,  —  here  was  the 
ticket;  I  had  but  to  pay,  add  a  smaller  trifle 
for  interest  and  commission,  and  it  was  mine. 
As  I  never  have  worn  rings  I  did  not  care  to 
begin  the  habit  by  gambling  in  pawn  tickets, 
much  though  I  should  have  liked  to  oblige 
Louise.  Her  emotion  when  I  refused  seemed 
so  out  of  proportion,  and  yet  was  so  unmis- 
takably genuine,  that  it  bewildered  me. 

But  she  pulled  herself  together  almost  at 
once  and  began  to  talk  of  the  restaurant  which, 
I  learned,  was  marching  in  a  simply  marvellous 
manner.  It  was  only  when,  in  answer  to  her 
question,  I  told  her  that  the  Demoiselle  Suisse 
was  marching  not  at  all  and  was  about  to  leave 
me,  that  the  truth  came  out.  There  was  no 

90 


Louise 

restaurant,  there  never  had  been,  —  except  in 
the  country  of  Tartarin's  lions;  it  was  her  in- 
vention to  spare  me  any  self-reproach  I  might 
have  felt  for  turning  her  adrift  at  the  end 
of  her  week's  engagement.  She  had  found  no 
work  since.  She  and  her  husband  had  pawned 
everything.  Tiens,  and  she  emptied  before 
me  a  pocketful  of  pawn  tickets.  They  were 
without  a  sou.  They  had  had  nothing  to  eat 
for  twenty-four  hours.  That  was  the  change. 
I  began  to  understand.  She  was  starving,  lit- 
erally starving,  in  the  cold  and  gloom  and 
damp  of  the  London  winter,  she  who  was  used 
to  the  warmth  and  sunshine,  to  the  clear  blue 
skies  of  Provence.  If  the  aliens  who  drift  to 
England,  as  to  the  Promised  Land,  could  but 
know  what  awaited  them ! 

Of  course  I  took  her  back.  She  might  have 
added  rouge  to  the  powder,  she  might  have 
glittered  all  over  with  diamonds,  sham  or  real, 
and  I  would  not  have  minded.  J.  welcomed 
her  with  joy.  William  Penn  hung  rapturously 
at  her  heels.  We  had  a  risotto,  golden  as  the 
sun  of  the  Midi,  fragrant  as  its  kitchens,  for 
our  dinner. 


Our  House 

There  was  no  question  of  a  week  now,  no 
question  of  time  at  all.  It  did  not  seem  as  if 
we  ever  could  manage  again,  as  if  we  ever 
could  have  managed,  without  Louise.  And 
she,  on  her  side,  took  possession  of  our  cham- 
bers, and,  for  a  ridiculously  small  sum  a  week, 
worked  her  miracles  for  us.  We  positively 
shone  with  cleanliness;  London  grime  no 
longer  lurked,  the  skeleton  in  our  cupboards. 
We  never  ate  dinners  and  breakfasts  more 
to  our  liking,  never  had  I  been  so  free  from 
housekeeping,  never  had  my  weekly  bills 
been  so  small.  Eventually,  she  charged  her- 
self with  the  marketing,  though  she  could  not, 
and  never  could,  learn  to  speak  a  word  of 
English;  but  not  even  the  London  tradesman 
was  proof  against  her  smile.  She  kept  the 
weekly  accounts,  though  she  could  neither 
read  nor  write :  in  her  intelligence,  an  eloquent 
witness  to  the  folly  of  general  education.  She 
was,  in  a  word,  the  most  capable  and  intelli- 
gent woman  I  have  ever  met,  so  that  it  was  the 
more  astounding  that  she  should  also  be  the 
most  charming. 

Most  astounding  of  all  was  the  way,  en- 
92 


Louise 

tirely,  typically  Provencale  as  she  was,  she 
could  adapt  herself  to  London  and  its  life  and 
people.  Though  she  wore  in  the  street  an 
ordinary  felt  hat,  and  in  the  house  the  English 
apron,  you  could  see  that  her  hair  was  made 
for  the  pretty  Provencal  ribbon,  and  her 
broad  shoulders  for  the  Provencal  fichu.  TV, 
ve,  and  au  mouins  were  as  constantly  in  her 
mouth  as  in  Tartarin's.  Provencal  proverbs 
forever  hovered  on  her  lips.  She  sang  Pro- 
vencal songs  at  her  work.  She  had  ready  a 
Provencal  story  for  every  occasion.  Her  very 
adjectives  were  Mistral's,  her  very  exaggera- 
tions Daudet's.  And  yet  she  did  everything 
as  if  she  had  been  a  "general"  in  London 
chambers  all  her  life.  Nothing  came  amiss  to 
her.  After  her  first  startling  appearance  as 
waitress,  it  was  no  time  before  she  was  serving 
at  table  as  if  she  had  been  born  to  it,  and  with 
such  a  grace  of  her  own  that  every  dish  she 
offered  seemed  a  personal  tribute.  People 
who  had  never  seen  her  before  would  smile 
back  involuntarily  as  they  helped  themselves. 
It  was  the  same  no  matter  what  she  did.  She 
was  always  gay,  however  heavy  her  task. 

93 


Our  House 

To,  her  even  London,  with  its  fogs,  was  a 
galejado,  as  they  say  "down  there."  And  she 
was  so  appreciative.  We  would  make  excuses 
to  give  her  things  for  the  pleasure  of  watching 
the  warm  glow  spread  over  her  face  and  the 
light  leap  to  her  eyes.  We  would  send  her  to 
the  theatre  for  the  delight  of  having  her  come 
back  and  tell  us  about  it.  All  the  world,  on  and 
off  the  stage,  was  exalted  and  transfigured  as 
she  saw  it. 

But  frank  as  she  was  in  her  admiration  of 
all  the  world,  she  remained  curiously  reticent 
about  herself.  "My  poor  grandmother  used 
to  say,  you  must  turn  your  tongue  seven  times 
in  your  mouth  before  speaking,"  she  said  to 
me  once;  and  I  used  to  fancy  she  gave  hers 
a  few  extra  twists  when  it  came  to  talking  of 
her  own  affairs.  Some  few  facts  I  gathered: 
that  she  had  been  at  one  time  an  ouvreuse  in 
a  Marseilles  theatre;  at  another,  a  tailoress,  — 
how  accomplished,  the  smart  appearance  of 
her  husband  in  J.'s  old  coats  and  trousers  was 
to  show  us;  and  that,  always,  off  and  on,  she 
had  made  a  business  of  buying  at  the  periodi- 
cal sales  of  the  Mont  de  Piete  and  selling  at 

94 


Louise 

private  sales  of  her  own.  I  gathered  also  that 
they  all  knew  her  in  Marseilles ;  it  was  Louise 
here,  Louise  there,  as  she  passed  through  the 
market,  and  everybody  must  have  a  word  and 
a  laugh  with  her.  No  wonder!  You  could  n't 
have  a  word  and  a  laugh  once  with  Louise 
and  not  long  to  repeat  the  experience.  But 
to  her  life  when  the  hours  of  work  were  over, 
she  offered  next  to  no  clue. 

Only  one  or  two  figures  flitted,  pale  shadows, 
through  her  rare  reminiscences.  One  was  the 
old  grandmother,  whose  sayings  were  full  of 
wisdom,  but  who  seemed  to  have  done  little 
for  her  save  give  her,  fortunately,  no  schooling 
at  all,  and  a  religious  education  that  bore  the 
most  surprising  fruit.  Louise  had  made  her 
first  communion,  she  had  walked  in  procession 
on  feast  days.  J'adorais  fa,  she  would  tell  me, 
as  she  recalled  her  long  white  veil  and  the 
taper  in  her  hand.  But  she  adored  every  bit 
as  much  going  to  the  Salvation  Army  meetings, 
—  the  lassies  would  invite  her  in,  and  lend  her 
a  hymn-book,  and  she  would  sing  as  hard  as 
ever  she  could,  was  her  account.  Her  ideas  on 
the  subject  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  relations 

95 


Our  House 

of  the  Holy  Family  left  me  gasping.  But  her 
creed  had  the  merit  of  simplicity.  The  Bonn 
Diou  was  intelligent,  she  maintained;  il  aime 
les  gens  honnetes.  He  would  not  ask  her  to 
hurry  off  to  church  and  leave  all  in  disorder 
at  home,  and  waste  her  time.  If  she  needed  to 
pray,  she  knelt  down  where  and  as  she  was, 
and  the  Bonn  Diou  was  as  well  pleased.  He  was 
a  man  like  us,  was  n't  He  ?  Well  then,  He 
understood. 

There  was  also  a  sister.  She  occupied  a 
modest  apartment  in  Marseilles  when  she  first 
dawned  upon  our  horizon,  but  so  rapidly  did 
it  expand  into  a  palatial  house  in  town  and  a 
palatial  villa  by  the  sea,  both  with  cellars  of 
rare  and  exquisite  vintages  and  stables  full 
of  horses  and  carriages,  that  we  looked  con- 
fidently to  the  fast-approaching  day  when  we 
should  find  her  installed  in  the  Elysee  at 
Paris.  Only  in  one  respect  did  she  never  vary 
by  a  hair's  breadth:  this  was  her  hatred  of 
Louise's  husband. 

Here,  at  all  events,  was  a  member  of  the 
family  about  whom  we  learned  more  than  we 
cared  to  know.  For  if  he  did  not  show  himself 

96 


Louise 

at  first,  that  did  not  mean  his  willingness  to 
let  us  ignore  him.  He  persisted  in  wanting 
Louise  to  meet  him  at  the  corner,  sometimes 
just  when  I  most  wanted  her  in  the  kitchen. 
He  would  have  her  come  back  toliim  at  night; 
and  to  see  her,  after  her  day's  hard  work,  start 
out  in  the  black  sodden  streets,  seldom  earlier 
than  ten,  often  as  late  as  midnight;  to  realize 
that  she  must  start  back  long  before  the  sun 
would  have  thought  of  coming  up,  if  the  sun 
ever  did  come  up  on  a  London  winter  morn- 
ing, made  us  wretchedly  uncomfortable.  The 
husband,  however,  was  not  to  be  moved  by  any 
messages  I  might  send  him.  He  was  too  shy 
to  grant  the  interview  I  asked.  But  he  gave 
me  to  understand  through  her  that  he  wouldn't 
do  without  her,  he  would  rather  starve,  he 
could  n't  get  along  without  her.  We  did  not 
blame  him :  we  could  n't,  either.  That  was 
why,  after  several  weeks  of  discomfort  to  all 
concerned,  it  occurred  to  us  that  we  might 
invite  him  to  make  our  home  his;  and  we  were 
charmed  by  his  condescension  when,  at  last 
conquering  his  shyness,  he  accepted  our  invi- 
tation. The  threatened  deadlock  was  thus 

97 


Our  House 

settled,  and  M.  Auguste,  as  he  introduced  him- 
self, came  to  us  as]  a  guest  for  as  long  as  he 
chose  to  stay.  There  were  friends  —  there 
always  are  —  to  warn  us  that  what  we  were 
doing  was  sheer  madness.  What  did  we  know 
about  him,  anyway?  Precious  little,  it  was  a 
fact:  that  he  was  the  husband  of  Louise, 
neither  more  nor  less.  We  did  not  even  know 
that,  it  was  hinted.  But  if  Louise  had  not 
asked  for  our  marriage  certificate,  could  we 
insist  upon  her  producing  hers  ? 

It  may  have  been  mad,  but  it  worked  excel- 
lently. M.  Auguste  as  a  guest  was  the  pattern 
of  discretion.  I  had  never  had  so  much  as  a 
glimpse  of  him  until  he  came  to  visit  us.  Then 
I  found  him  a  good-looking  man,  evidently 
a  few  years  younger  than  Louise,  well-built, 
rather  taller  than  the  average  Frenchman. 
Beyond  this,  it  was  weeks  before  I  knew  any- 
thing of  him  except  the  astonishing  adroitness 
with  which  he  kept  out  of  our  way.  He 
quickly  learned  our  hours  and  arranged  his 
accordingly.  After  we  had  begun  work  in 
the  morning,  he  would  saunter  down  to  the 
kitchen  and  have  his  coffee,  the  one  person  of 

98 


Louise 

leisure  in  the  establishment.  After  that,  and 
again  in  the  afternoon,  he  would  stroll  out  to 
attend  to  what  I  take  were  the  not  too  arduous 
duties  of  a  horse-dealer  with  neither  horses 
nor  capital,  —  for  as  a  horse-dealer  he  de- 
scribed himself  when  he  had  got  so  far  as  to 
describe  himself  at  all.  At  noon  and  at  dinner- 
time, he  would  return  from  Tattersall's,  or 
wherever  his  not  too  exhausting  business  had 
called  him,  with  a  small  paper  parcel  supposed 
to  contain  his  breakfast  or  his  dinner,  our 
agreement  being  that  he  was  to  supply  his  own 
food.  The  evenings  he  spent  with  Louise. 
I  could  discover  no  vice  in  him  except  the,  to 
us,  disturbing  excess  of  his  devotion  to  her. 
You  read  of  this  sort  of  devotion  in  French 
novels  and  do  not  believe  in  it.  But  M.  Au- 
guste,  in  his  exacting  dependence  on  Louise, 
left  the  French  novel  far  behind.  As  for 
Louise,  though  she  was  no  longer  young  and 
beauty  fades  early  in  the  South,  I  have  never 
met,  in  or  out  of  books,  a  woman  who  made 
me  understand  so  well  the  reason  of  the  self- 
ishness some  men  call  love. 
M.  Auguste's  manners  to  us  were  irreproach- 
99 


Our  House 

able.  We  could  only  admire  the  consideration 
he  showed  in  so  persistently  effacing  himself. 
J.  never  would  have  seen  him,  if  on  feast  days 
—  Christmas,  New  Year's,  the  I4th  of  July  — 
M.  Auguste  had  not,  with  great  ceremony, 
entered  the  dining-room  at  the  hour  of  morn- 
ing coffee  to  shake  hands  and  wish  J.  the  com- 
pliments of  the  season.  With  me  his  relations 
grew  less  formal,  for  he  was  not  slow  to  dis- 
cover that  we  had  one  pleasant  weakness  in 
common.  Though  the  modest  proportions  of 
that  brown-paper  parcel  might  not  suggest  it, 
M.  Auguste  knew  and  liked  what  was  good  to 
eat;  so  did  I.  Almost  before  I  realized  it,  he 
had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  preparing  some 
special  dish  for  me,  or  of  making  my  coffee, 
when  I  chanced  to  be  alone  for  lunch  or  for 
dinner.  I  can  still  see  the  gleam  in  his  eyes  as 
he  brought  me  in  my  cup,  and  assured  me  that 
he,  not  Louise,  was  the  artist,  and  that  it  was 
something  of  extra  —  but  of  extra !  —  as  it 
always  was.  Nor  was  it  long  before  he  was 
installed  chef  in  our  kitchen  on  the  occasion 
of  any  little  breakfast  or  dinner  we  might  be 
giving.  The  first  time  I  caught  him  in  shirt- 

100 


Louise 

sleeves,  with  Louise's  apron  flapping  about  his 
legs  and  the  bib  drawn  over  his  waistcoat,  he 
was  inclined  to  be  apologetic.  But  he  soon 
gave  up  apology.  It  was  evident  there  were 
few  things  he  enjoyed  more  than  cooking  a 
good  dinner,  —  unless  it  was  eating  it,  —  and 
his  apron  was  put  on  early  in  the  day.  In  the 
end,  I  never  asked  any  one  to  breakfast  or 
dinner  without  consulting  him,  and  his  menus 
strengthened  the  friendliness  of  our  rela- 
tions. 

After  a  while  he  ran  my  errands  and  helped 
Louise  to  market.  I  found  that  he  spoke  and 
wrote  very  good  English,  and  was  a  man  of 
some  education.  I  have  preserved  his  daily 
accounts,  written  in  an  unusually  neat  hand- 
writing, always  beginning  "Mussy:  I  penny"; 
and  this  reminds  me  that  not  least  in  his  fa- 
vour was  his  success  in  ingratiating  himself 
with  William  Penn,  —  or  "Mussy"  in  Louise's 
one  heroic  attempt  to  cope  with  the  English. 
M.  Auguste,  moreover,  was  quiet  and  reserved 
to  a  degree  that  would  not  have  discredited 
the  traditional  Englishman.  Only  now  and 
then  did  the  Midi  show  itself  in  him:  in  the 

101 


Our  House 

gleam  of  his  eye  over  his  gastronomic  master- 
pieces; in  his  pose  as  horse-dealer  and  the 
scale  on  which  the  business  he  never  did  was 
schemed, — Mademoiselle,  the  French  dress- 
maker from  Versailles,  who  counted  in  tens 
and  thought  herself  rich,  was  dazzled  by  the 
way  M.  Auguste  reckoned  by  thousands;  and 
once,  luckily  only  once,  in  a  frenzied  outbreak 
of  passion. 

He  was  called  to  Paris,  I  never  understood 
why.  When  the  day  came,  he  was  seized  with 
such  despair  as  I  had  never  seen  before,  as  I 
trust  I  may  never  have  to  see  again.  He  could 
not  leave  Louise,  he  would  not.  No!  No! 
No!  He  raved,  he  swore,  he  wept.  I  was  terri- 
fied, but  Louise,  when  I  called  her  aside  to 
consult  her,  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "We 
play  the  comedy  in  the  kitchen,"  she  laughed, 
but  I  noticed  that  her  laughter  was  low.  I 
fancy  when  you  played  the  comedy  with  M. 
Auguste,  tragedy  was  only  just  round  the 
corner.  With  the  help  of  Mademoiselle  she  got 
him  to  the  station;  he  had  wanted  to  throw 
himself  from  the  train  as  it  started,  was  her 
report.  And  in  three  days,  not  a  penny  the 

102 


Louise 

richer  for  the  journey,  he  had  returned  to  his 
life  of  ease  in  our  chambers. 

Thus  we  came  to  know  M.  Auguste's  vir- 
tues and  something  of  his  temper,  but  never 
M.  Auguste  himself.  The  months  passed,  and 
we  were  still  conscious  of  mystery.  I  did  not 
inspire  him  with  the  healthy  fear  he  enter- 
tained for  J.,  but  I  cannot  say  he  ever  took  me 
into  his  confidence.  What  he  was  when  not  in 
our  chambers;  what  he  had  been  before  he 
moved  into  them;  what  turn  of  fate  had 
stranded  him,  penniless,  in  London  with 
Louise,  to  make  us  the  richer  for  his  coming; 
why  he,  a  man  of  education,  was  married  to 
a  woman  of  none;  why  he  was  M.  Auguste 
while  Louise  was  Louise  Sorel  —  I  knew  as 
little  the  day  he  left  us  as  the  day  he  arrived. 
J.  instinctively  distrusted  him,  convinced  that 
he  had  committed  some  monstrous  crime  and 
was  in  hiding.  This  was  also  the  opinion  of 
the  French  Quarter,  as  I  learned  afterwards. 
It  seems  the  Quartier  held  its  breath  when  it 
heard  he  was  our  guest,  and  waited  for  the 
worst,  only  uncertain  what  form  that  worst 
wouljd  take,  —  whether  we  should  be  assassi- 

103 


Our  House 

nated  in  our  beds,  or  a  bonfire  made  of  our 
chambers.  M.  Auguste,  however,  spared  us 
and  disappointed  the  Quartier.  His  crime,  to 
the  end,  remained  as  baffling  as  the  identity 
of  the  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask,  or  the  secret  of 
Kaspar  Hauser. 

That  he  was  honest,  I  would  wager  my  own 
reputation  for  honesty,  even  if  it  was  curious 
the  way  his  fingers  gradually  covered  them- 
selves with  rings,  a  watch-chain  dangled  from 
his  waistcoat  pocket,  a  pin  was  stuck  jauntily 
in  his  necktie.  Her  last  purchases  at  the 
Mont  de  Piete,  pawned  during  those  first  weeks 
of  starving  in  London  and  gradually  redeemed, 
was  Louise's  explanation;  and  why  should  we 
have  suspected  M.  Auguste  of  coming  by 
them  unlawfully  when  he  never  attempted  to 
rob  us,  though  we  gave  him  every  opportunity? 
He  knew  where  I  kept  my  money  and  my 
keys.  He  was  alone  with  Louise  in  our  cham- 
bers, not  only  many  a  day  and  evening,  but 
once  for  a  long  summer. 

We  had  to  cycle  down  into  Italy  and  William 
Penn  could  not  be  left  to  care  for  himself,  nor 
could  we  board  him  out  without  risking  the 

104 


Louise 

individuality  of  a  cat  who  had  never  seen  the 
world  except  from  the  top  of  a  four-story 
house.  Louise  and  M.  Auguste,  therefore, 
were  retained  to  look  after  him,  which,  I 
should  add,  they  did  in  a  manner  as  satisfac- 
tory to  William  as  to  ourselves.  Every  week  I 
received  a  report  of  his  health  and  appetite 
from  M.  Auguste,  in  whom  I  discovered  a  new 
and  delightful  talent  as  correspondent.  "De- 
puis  votre  depart"  said  the  first,  "cette  pauvre 
bete  a  miaule  apres  vous  tons  les  jours,  et  il  est 
constamment  a  la  porte  pour  voir  si  vous  ne  venez 
pas.  II  ne  commence  vraiment  a  en  prendre  son 
parti  que  depuis  hier.  Mais  tous  ces  soucis  de 
chat  [for  that  charming  phrase  what  would  one 
not  have  forgiven  M.  Auguste?],  mais  tous  ces 
soucis  de  chat  ne  Vempechent  pas  de  bien  boire 
son  lait  le  matin  et  manger  sa  viande  deux  fois 
par  jour."  Nor  was  it  all  colour  of  rose  to  be 
in  charge  of  William.  " Figurez-vous"  the  next 
report  ran,  "que  Mussy  a  devore  et  abime  com- 
pletement  une  paire  de  has  tout  neufs  que  Louise 
s'est  achetee  hier.  C'est  un  vrai  petit  diable,  mais 
il  est  si  gentil  qu'on  ne  peut  vraiment  pas  le 
gronder  pour  cela."  It  was  consoling  to  hear 

105 


Our  House 

eventually  that  William  had  returned  to 
normal  pursuits.  "Mussy  est  bien  sage,  il  a 
attrape  une  souris  hier  dans  la  cuisine — je 
crois  bien  que  Madame  ne  trouvera  jamais  un 
aussi  gentil  Mussy"  And  so  the  journal  of 
William's  movements  was  continued  through- 
out our  absence.  When,  leaving  J.  in  Italy,  I 
returned  to  London,  —  met  at  midnight  at  the 
station  by  M.  Auguste  with  flattering  enthusi- 
asm, —  Mussy's  condition  and  behaviour  cor- 
roborated the  weekly  bulletins.  And  not  only 
this.  Our  chambers  were  as  clean  as  the 
proverbial  new  pin:  everything  was  in  its 
place;  not  so  much  as  a  scrap  of  paper  was 
missing.  The  only  thing  that  had  disappeared 
was  the  sprinkling  of  gray  in  Louise's  hair, 
and  for  this  M.  Auguste  volubly  prepared  me 
during  our  walk  from  the  station;  she  had 
dyed  it  with  almost  unforeseen  success,  he  told 
me,  so  triumphantly  that  I  put  down  the 
bottle  of  dye  to  his  extravagance. 

If  I  know  M.  Auguste  was  not  a  thief,  I  do 
not  think  he  was  a  murderer.  How  could  I 
see  blood  on  the  hands  of  the  man  who  pre-^ 
sided  so  joyously  over  my  pots  and  pans? 

1 06 


Louise 

If  he  were  a  forger,  my  trust  in  him  never  led 
to  abuse  of  my  cheque  book;  if  a  deserter, 
how  came  he  to  be  possessed  of  his  livret  mili- 
taire  duly  signed,  as  my  own  eyes  are  the 
witness?  how  could  he  venture  back  to  France, 
as  I  know  he  did  for  I  received  from  him  letters 
with  the  Paris  postmark?  An  anarchist,  J.  was 
inclined  to  believe.  But  I  could  not  imagine 
him  dabbling  in  bombs  and  fuses.  To  be  a 
horse-dealer,  without  horses  or  money,  was 
much  more  in  his  line. 

Only  of  one  thing  were  we  sure:  however 
hideous  or  horrible  the  evil,  M.  Auguste  had 
worked  "down  there,"  under  the  hot  sun  of 
Provence,  Louise  had  no  part  in  it.  She  knew 
—  it  was  the  reason  of  her  curious  reticences, 
of  her  sacrifice  of  herself  to  him.  That  he  loved 
her  was  inevitable.  Who  could  help  loving 
her?  She  was  so  intelligent,  so  graceful,  so 
gay.  But  that  she  should  love  M.  Auguste 
would  have  been  incomprehensible,  were  it 
not  in  the  nature  of  woman  to  love  the  man 
who  is  most  selfish  in  his  dependence  upon  her. 
She  did  all  the  work,  and  he  had  all  the  plea- 
sure of  it.  He  was  always  decently  dressed, 

107 


Our  House 

there  was  always  money  in  his  pocket,  though 
she,  who  earned  it,  never  had  a  penny  to  spend 
on  herself.  No  matter  how  busy  and  hurried 
she  might  be,  she  had  always  the  leisure  to 
talk  to  him,  to  amuse  him  when  he  came  in, 
always  the  courage  to  laugh,  like  the  little 
Fleurance  in  the  story.  What  would  you? 
She  was  made  like  that.  She  had  always 
laughed,  when  she  was  sad  as  when  she  was 
gay.  And  while  she  was  making  life  delightful 
for  him,  she  was  doing  for  us  what  three 
Englishwomen  combined  could  not  have  done 
so  well,  and  with  a  charm  that  all  the  Eng- 
lishwomen in  the  world  could  not  have  mus- 
tered among  them. 

She  had  been  with  us  about  a  year  when  I 
began  to  notice  that,  at  moments,  her  face 
was  clouded  and  her  smile  less  ready.  At  first, 
I  put  it  down  to  her  endless  comedy  with  M. 
Auguste.  But,  after  a  bit,  it  looked  as  if  the 
trouble  were  more  serious  even  than  his  histri- 
onics. It  was  nothing,  she  laughed  when  I 
spoke  to  her;  it  would  pass.  And  she  went  on 
amusing  and  providing  for  M.  Auguste  and 
working  for  us.  But  by  the  time  the  dark  days 

108 


Louise 

of  November  set  in,  we  were  more  worried 
about  her  than  ever.  The  crisis  came  with 
Christmas. 

On  Christmas  Day,  friends  were  to  dine 
with  us,  and  we  invited  Mademoiselle,  the 
French  dressmaker,  to  eat  her  Christmas  din- 
ner with  Louise  and  M.  Auguste.  We  were 
very  staid  in  the  dining-room, — it  turned  out 
rather  a  dull  affair.  But  in  the  kitchen  it  was 
an  uproarious  feast.  Though  she  lived  some 
distance  away,  though  on  Christmas  night 
London  omnibuses  are  few  and  far  between, 
Mademoiselle  could  hardly  be  persuaded  to 
go  home,  so  much  was  she  enjoying  herself. 
Louise  was  all  laughter.  "You  have  been 
amused?"  I  asked,  when  Mademoiselle,  finally 
and  reluctantly,  had  been  bundled  off  by  J. 
in  a  hansom. 

"Mais  oui,  mais  oui,"  M.  Auguste  cried, 
pleasure  in  his  voice.  "Cette  pauvre  Made- 
moiselle !  Her  life,  it  is  so  sad,  she  is  so  alone. 
It  is  good  for  her  to  be  amused.  We  have  told 
her  many  stories,  —  et  des  histoires  un  tout 
petit  pen  salees,  n'est-ce  pas  ?  pour  f gayer  cette 
pauvre  Mademoiselle?" 

109 


Our  House 

It  was  the  day  after  the  feast  that  Louise 
had  to  give  in.  She  confessed  she  had  been 
in  torture  while  she  served  our  dinner  and 
Mademoiselle  was  there.  She  could  hardly  eat 
or  drink.  But  why  make  it  sad  for  all  the  world 
because  she  was  in  pain  ?  and  she  had  laughed, 
she  had  laughed! 

We  scolded  her  first.  Then  we  sent  her  to 
a  good  doctor.  It  was  worse  than  we  feared. 
The  trouble  was  grave,  there  must  be  an  opera- 
tion without  delay.  The  big  tears  rolled  down 
her  cheeks  as  she  said  it.  She  looked  old  and 
broken.  Why,  she  moaned,  should  this  sorrow 
come  to  her?  She  had  never  done  any  harm 
to  any  one:  why  should  she  have  to  suffer? 
Why,  indeed  ?  Her  mistake  had  been  to  do  too 
little  harm,  too  much  good,  to  others,  to  think 
too  little  of  herself.  Now,  she  had  to  pay  for 
it  as  one  almost  always  does  pay  for  one's 
good  deeds.  She  worried  far  less  over  the  pain 
she  must  bear  than  over  the  inconvenience 
to  M.  Auguste  when  she  could  no  longer  earn 
money  for  him. 

We  wanted  her  to  go  into  one  of  the  London 
hospitals.  We  offered  to  take  a  room  for  her 

no 


Louise 

where  she  could  stay  after  the  operation  until 
she  got  back  her  strength.  But  we  must  not 
think  her  ungrateful,  the  mere  idea  of  a  hos- 
pital made  her  desperate.  And  what  would  she 
do  in  a  room  avec  un  homme  comme  (a.  Be- 
sides, there  was  the  sister  in  Marseilles,  and, 
in  the  hour  of  her  distress,  her  sister's  horses 
and  carriages  multiplied  like  the  miraculous 
loaves  and  fishes,  the  vintages  in  the  cellar 
doubled  in  age  and  strength.  And  she  was 
going  to  die;  it  was  queer,  but  one  knew  those 
things;  and  she  longed  to  die  Id-has,  where 
there  was  a  sun  and  the  sky  was  blue,  where 
she  was  at  home.  We  knew  she  had  not  a 
penny  for  the  journey.  M.  Auguste  had  seen 
to  that.  Naturally,  J.  gave  her  the  money. 
He  would  not  have  had  a  moment's  comfort 
if  he  had  not,  —  the  drain  upon  your  own 
emotions  is  part  of  the  penalty  you  pay  for 
having  a  human  being  and  not  a  machine  to 
work  for  you,  —  and  he  added  a  little  more 
to  keep  her  from  want  on  her  arrival  in  Mar- 
seilles, in  case  the  sister  had  vanished  or  the 
sister's  fortunes  had  dwindled  to  their  original 
proportions.  He  exacted  but  one  condition: 

in 


Our  House 

M.  Auguste  was  not  to  know  there  was  more 
than  enough  for  the  journey. 

Louise's  last  days  with  us  were  passed  in 
tears,  —  poor  Louise !  who  until  now  had 
laughed  at  fate.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that 
M.  Auguste  came  out  strong.  I  could  not 
have  believed  he  had  it  in  him.  He  no  longer 
spent  his  time  dodging  J.  and  dealing  in 
visionary  horses.  He  took  Louise's  place 
boldly.  He  made  the  beds,  cooked  all  our 
meals,  waited  on  us,  dusted,  opened  the  door, 
while  Louise  sat,  melancholy  and  forlorn,  in 
front  of  the  kitchen  fire.  On  the  last  day  of  all 
—  she  was  not  to  start  until  the  afternoon 
Continental  train — she  drew  me  mysteriously 
into  the  dining-room,  she  shut  the  door  with 
every  precaution,  she  showed  me  where  she 
had  sewed  the  extra  sovereigns  in  her  stays. 
M.  Auguste  should  never  know.  "Je  pars 
pour  mon  long  voyage"  she  repeated.  "J'ai 
mes  pres  sentiments"  And  she  was  going  to 
ask  them  to  let  her  wear  a  black  skirt  I  had 
given  her,  and  an  old  coat  of  J.'s  she  had 
turned  into  a  bodice,  when  the  time  came  to 
lay  her  in  her  coffin.  Thus  something  of  ours 

112 


Louise 

would  go  with  her  on  the  long  journey.  How 
could  she  forget  us  ?  How  could  we  forget  her? 
she  might  better  have  asked.  I  made  a  thou- 
sand excuses  to  leave  her;  Louise  playing" the 
comedy"  had  never  been  so  tragic  as  Louise  in 
tears.  But  she  would  have  me  back  again,  and 
again,  and  again,  to  tell  me  how  happy  she  had 
been  with  us. 

"Why,  I  was  at  home,"  she  said,  her  sur- 
prise not  yet  outworn.  "  J'etais  chez  moi,  et 
fetais  si  tranquille.  I  went.  I  came.  Mon- 
sieur entered.  He  called  me.  'Louise'  — 
fOui,  Monsieur.9  —  *  Voulez-vous  faire  ceci  ou 
celaV — ' Mais  oui,  Monsieur,  de  suite*  And 
I  would  do  it  and  Monsieur  would  say,  'Merci, 
Louise,'  and  he  would  go.  And  me,  I  would 
run  quick  to  the  kitchen  or  upstairs  to  finish 
my  work.  J'etais  si  tranquille  !  >! 

The  simplicity  of  the  memories  she  treasured 
made  her  story  of  them  pitiful  as  I  listened. 
How  little  peace  had  fallen  to  her  lot,  that  she 
should  prize  the  quiet  and  homeliness  of  her 
duties  in  our  chambers! 

At  last  it  was  time  to  go.  She  kissed  me  on 
both  cheeks.  She  gave  J.  one  look,  then  she 

"3 


Our  House 

flung  herself  into  his  arms  and  kissed  him  too 
on  both  cheeks.  She  almost  strangled  William 
Penn.  She  sobbed  so,  she  could  n't  speak. 
She  clutched  and  kissed  us  again.  She  ran  out 
of  the  door  and  we  heard  her  sobbing  down  the 
three  flights  of  stairs  into  the  street.  J.  hur- 
ried into  his  workroom.  I  went  back  to  my 
desk.  I  don't  think  we  could  have  spoken 
either. 

Two  days  afterwards,  a  letter  from  M. 
Auguste  came  to  our  chambers,  so  empty  and 
forlorn  without  Louise.  They  were  in  Paris. 
They  had  had  a  dreadful  crossing, — he  hardly 
thought  Louise  would  arrive  at  Boulogne 
alive.  She  was  better,  but  must  rest  a  day  or 
two  before  starting  for  the  Midi.  She  begged 
us  to  see  that  Mussy  ate  his  meals  bien  regu- 
lierement,  and  that  he  "made  the  dead"  from 
time  to  time,  as  she  had  taught  him ;  and, 
would  we  write  ?  The  address  was  Mr.  August, 
Horse -Dealer,  Hotel  du  Cheval  Blanc,  Rue 
Chat-qui-peche-a-la-ligne,  Paris. 

Horse-dealer!  Louise  might  be  at  death's 
door,  but  M.  Auguste  had  his  position  to  main- 
tain. Then,  after  ten  long  days,  came  a  post- 
114 


Louise 

card,  also  from  Paris:  Louise  was  in  Marseilles, 
he  was  on  the  point  of  going,  once  there  he 
would  write.  Then  —  nothing.  Had  he  gone? 
Could  he  go? 

If  I  were  writing  a  romance  it  would,  with 
dramatic  fitness,  end  here.  But  if  I  keep  to 
facts,  I  must  add  that,  in  about  eight  months, 
Louise  and  M.  Auguste  reappeared;  that  both 
were  in  the  best  of  health  and  spirits,  M. 
Auguste  a  mass  of  jewelry;  that  all  the  sun- 
shine of  Provence  seemed  let  loose  in  the 
warmth  of  their  greeting;  that  horse-dealing 
for  the  moment  prospered  too  splendidly  for 
Louise  to  want  to  return  to  us,  —  or  was  this 
a  new  invention,  I  have  always  wondered, 
because  she  found  in  her  place  another  French- 
woman who  wept  at  the  prospect  of  being  dis- 
missed to  make  room  for  her? 

Well,  anyway,  for  a  while,  things,  according 
to  Louise,  continued  to  prosper.  She  would 
pay  me  friendly  visits  and  ask  for  sewing,  — 
her  afternoons  were  so  long,  —  and  tell  me  of 
M.  Auguste' s  success,  and  of  Provence,  though 
there  were  the  old  reticences.  By  degrees,  a 
shadow  fell  over  the  gaiety.  I  fancied  that 

"5 


Our  House 

"the  comedy"  was  being  played  faster  than 
ever  in  the  Soho  lodgings.  And,  of  a  sudden, 
the  fabric  of  prosperity  collapsed  like  a  house 
of  cards.  She  was  ill  again,  and  again  an 
operation  was  necessary.  There  was  not  a 
penny  in  her  pockets  nor  in  M.  Auguste's. 
What  happened  ?  Louise  had  only  to  smile,  and 
we  were  her  slaves.  But  this  time,  for  us  at 
least,  the  end  had  really  come.  We  heard 
nothing  more  from  either  of  them.  No  letters 
reached  us  from  Paris,  no  post-cards.  Did  she 
use  the  money  to  go  back  to  Marseilles  ?  Did 
she  ever  leave  London?  Did  M.  Auguste's 
fate  overtake  him  when  they  crossed  the 
Channel?  Were  the  Soho  lodgings  the  scene 
of  some  tremendous  crime  passionel  ?  For 
weeks  I  searched  the  police  reports  in  my 
morning  paper.  But  neither  then  nor  to  this 
day  have  I  had  a  trace  of  the  woman  who,  for 
over  a  year,  gave  to  life  in  our  chambers  the 
comfort  and  the  charm  of  her  presence.  She 
vanished. 

I  am  certain,  though,  that  wherever  she 
may  be,  she  is  mothering  M.  Auguste,  squan- 
dering upon  him  all  the  wealth  of  her  industry, 

116 


Louise 

her  gaiety,  her  unselfishness.  She  could  n't 
help  herself,  she  was  made  that  way.  And  the 
worst,  the  real  tragedy  of  it,  is  that  she  would 
rather  endure  every  possible  wrong  with  M. 
Auguste  than,  without  him,  enjoy  all  the 
rights  women  not  made  that  way  would  give 
her  if  they  could.  She  has  convinced  me  of  the 
truth  I  already  more  than  suspected:  it  is 
upon  the  M.  Augustes  of  this  world  that  the 
Woman  Question  will  eventually  be  wrecked. 


IV 

Our  Charwomen 


IV 


OUR   CHARWOMEN 

I  TOOK  over  the  charwoman  with  our  cham- 
bers, and  a  great  piece  of  luck  I  thought  it;  for 
charwomen  never  advertise,  and  are  unheard 
of  in  Registry  Offices.  It  was  certain  I  could 
not  get  into  the  chambers  without  one,  and  at 
that  early  stage  of  my  housekeeping  in  Lon- 
don I  should  not  have  known  where  in  the 
world  to  look  for  her. 

Mrs.  Maxfielde  was  the  highly  respectable 
name  of  the  woman  who  had  "done"  for  the 
previous  tenant,  and  had  she  heard  of  Mr. 
Shandy's  theory  of  names  she  could  not  have 
been  more  successful  in  adapting  her  person 
and  her  manner  to  her  own.  She  was  well  over 
sixty,  and  thin  and  gaunt  as  if  she  had  never 
had  enough  to  eat;  but  age  and  hunger  had 
not  lessened  her  hold  upon  the  decencies  of 
life.  Worthiness  oozed  from  her.  Victorian 
was  stamped  all  over  her,  —  it  was  in  her 

121 


Our  House 

black  shawl  and  bonnet,  in  the  meekness  of 
her  pose,  in  the  little  curtsy  she  bobbed  when 
she  spoke.  I  remember  Harold  Frederic  see- 
ing her  once  and,  with  the  intuition  of  the 
novelist,  placing  her:  "Who  is  your  old 
Queen  Victoria?"  he  asked.  Her  presence 
lost  nothing  when  she  took  off  her  shawl  and 
bonnet.  In  the  house  and  at  work  she  wore 
a  black  dress  and  a  white  apron,  surprisingly 
clean  considering  the  dirt  she  exposed  it  to, 
and  her  grey  hair  was  drawn  tight  back  and 
rolled  into  a  little  hard  knob,  the  scant  supply 
and  "the  parting  all  too  wide"  painfully 
exposed  to  view.  I  longed  for  something  to 
cover  the  old  grey  head  that  looked  so  grand- 
motherly and  out  of  keeping  as  it  bent  over 
scrubbing-brushes  and  dustpans  and  the  kitchen 
range,  but  it  would  have  been  against  all  the 
conventions  for  a  charwoman  to  appear  in  a 
servant's  cap.  There  is  a  rigid  line  in  these 
English  matters,  and  to  attempt  to  step  across 
is  to  face  the  contempt  of  those  who  draw 
it.  The  British  charwoman  must  go  capless, 
such  is  the  unwritten  law;  also,  she  must  re- 
main "Miss"  or  "Mrs.,"  though  the  Empire 

122 


Our  Charwomen 

would  totter  were  the  British  servant  called 
by  anything  but  her  name;  and  while  the 
servant  would  "forget  her  place"  were  she  to 
know  how  to  do  any  work  outside  her  own, 
the  charwoman  is  expected  to  meet  every 
emergency,  and  this  was  in  days  when  house- 
keeping for  me  was  little  more  than  a  long 
succession  of  emergencies. 

Mrs.  Maxfielde  was  equal  to  all.  She  saw 
me  triumphantly  through  one  domestic  crisis 
after  another.  She  was  the  most  accomplished 
of  her  accomplished  class,  and  the  most  willing. 
She  was  never  discouraged  by  the  magnitude 
of  the  tasks  I  set  her,  nor  did  she  ever  take 
advantage  of  my  dependence  upon  her.  On  the 
contrary,  she  let  me  take  advantage  of  her  will- 
ingness. She  cleaned  up  after  the  British  Work- 
man had  been  in  possession  for  a  couple  of 
months,  and  one  of  the  few  things  the  British 
Workman  can  do  successfully  is  to  leave  dirt  to 
be  cleaned  up.  She  helped  me  move  in  and  settle 
down.  She  supported  me  through  my  trying  epi- 
sode with  'Enrietter.  And  after 'Enrietter's  dis- 
appearance she  saved  me  from  domestic  chaos, 
though  the  work  and  the  hours  involved  would 

123 


Our  House 

have  daunted  a  woman  half  her  age  and  out- 
raged every  trade-union  in  the  country.  She 
arrived  at  seven  in  the  morning,  and  I  quickly 
handed  over  to  her  the  key  of  the  frontdoor, 
that  I  might  indulge  in  the  extra  hour  of  sleep 
of  which  she  was  so  much  more  in  need;  she 
stayed  until  eight  in  the  evening,  or,  at  my 
request,  until  nine  or  later;  and  in  between 
she  "did"  for  me  in  the  fullest  sense  of  that 
expressive  word.  There  were  times  when  it 
meant  "doing"  also  for  my  friends  whom  I 
was  inconsiderate  enough  to  invite  to  come 
and  see  me  in  my  domestic  upheaval,  putting 
their  friendship  to  the  test  still  further  by 
inducing  them  to  share  the  luncheons  and 
dinners  of  Mrs.  Maxfielde's  cooking.  Many 
as  were  her  good  points,  I  cannot  in  conscience 
say  that  cooking  was  among  them.  Hers 
might  have  been  the  vegetables  of  which 
Heine  wrote  that  they  were  brought  to  the 
table  just  as  God  made  them,  hers  the  gravies 
against  which  he  prayed  Heaven  to  keep 
every  Christian.  But  I  thought  it  much  to  be 
thankful  for  that  she  could  cook  at  all  when, 
to  judge  from  the  amount  she  ate,  she  could 

124 


Our  Charwomen 

have  had  so  little  practice  in  cooking  for  her- 
self. She  did  not  need  to  go  through  any  "fast 
cure,"  having  done  nothing  but  fast  all  her 
life.  She  had  got  out  of  the  way  of  eating  and 
into  the  way  of  starving;  the  choicest  dish 
would  not  have  tempted  her.  The  one  thing 
she  showed  the  least  appetite  for  was  her 
"  'arf  pint"  at  noon,  and  that  she  would  not  do 
without  though  she  had  to  fetch  it  from  the 
"public"  round  the  corner.  I  cannot  say  with 
greater  truth  that  Mrs.  Maxfielde's  talent  lay 
in  waiting,  but  she  never  allowed  anything 
or  anybody  to  hurry  her,  and  she  was  noiseless 
in  her  movements,  both  excellent  things  in  a 
waitress.  I  cannot  even  say  that  in  her  own 
line  of  scrubbing  she  was  above  suspicion,  but 
she  handled  her  brushes  and  brooms  and 
dusters  with  a  calm  and  dignity  which,  in  my 
troubles,  I  found  very  soothing.  Her  repose  may 
have  been  less  a  virtue  than  the  result  of  want 
of  proper  food,  but  in  any  case  it  was  a  great 
help  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  she  was  called 
to  struggle  with.  There  was  only  one  drawback. 
It  had  a  way  of  deserting  her  just  when  I  was 
most  in  need  of  it. 

125 


Our  House 

We  are  all  human,  and  Mrs.  Maxfielde  was 
not  without  her  weakness:  she  was  afflicted 
with  nerves.  In  looking  back  I  can  see  how  in 
character  her  sensibility  was.  It  belonged  to 
the  old  shawl  and  the  demure  bonnet,  to  the 
meekness  of  pose,  to  the  bobbing  of  curtsies,  — 
it  was  Victorian.  But  at  the  time  I  was  more 
struck  by  its  inconvenience.  A  late  milkman 
or  a  faithless  butcher  would  bring  her  to  the 
verge  of  collapse.  She  would  jump  at  the  over- 
boiling of  the  kettle.  Her  hand  went  to  her 
heart  on  the  slightest  provocation,  and  stayed 
there  with  a  persistency  that  made  me  suspect 
her  of  seeking  her  dissipation  in  disaster.  On 
the  morning  after  our  fire,  though  she  had 
been  at  home  in  her  own  bed  through  all  the 
danger  of  it,  she  was  in  such  a  flutter  that  I 
should  have  had  to  revive  her  with  salts  had 
not  a  dozen  firemen,  policemen,  and  salvage 
men  been  waiting  for  her  to  refresh  them  with 
tea.  -It  was  only  when  one  of  the  firemen  took 
the  kettle  from  her  helpless  hand,  saying  he 
was  a  family  man  himself,  and  when  I  stood 
sternly  over  her  that,  like  an  elderly  Char- 
lotte, she  fell  to  cutting  bread  and  butter, 

126 


Our  Charwomen 

and  regained  the  calm  and  dignity  becoming 
to  her.  But  I  never  saw  her  so  agitated  as  the 
day  she  met  a  rat  in  the  cellar.  I  had  sup- 
posed it  was  only  in  comic  papers  and  old- 
fashioned  novels  that  a  rat  or  a  mouse  could 
drive  a  sensible  woman  into  hysterics.  But 
Mrs.  Maxfielde  showed  me  my  mistake.  From 
that  innocent  encounter  in  the  cellar  she 
bounded  up  the  four  flights  of  stairs,  burst 
into  my  room,  and,  breathless,  livid,  both 
hands  on  her  heart,  sank  into  a  chair:  a  lib- 
erty which  at  any  other  time  she  would  have 
regarded  as  a  breach  of  all  the  proprieties. 
"Oh,  mum!"  she  gasped,  "in  the  cellar!  —  a 
rat!"  And  she  was  not  herself  again  until  the 
next  morning. 

After  her  day's  work  and  her  excitement  in 
the  course  of  it,  it  seemed  as  if  Mrs.  Max- 
fielde could  have  neither  time  nor  energy  for  a 
life  of  her  own  outside  our  chambers.  But  she 
had,  and  a  very  full  life  it  was,  and  with  the 
details  as  she  confided  them  to  me,  I  got  to 
know  a  great  deal  about  "how  the  poor  live," 
which  I  should  have  preferred  to  learn  from 
a  novel  or  a  Blue  Book.  She  had  a  husband, 

127 


Our  House 

much  older,  who  had  been  paralyzed  for  years. 
Before  she  came  to  me  in  the  morning  she  had  to 
get  him  up*for  the  day,  give  him  his  breakfast, 
and  leave  everything  in  order  for  him,  and  as 
she  lived  half  an  hour's  walk  from  our  chambers 
and  never  failed  to  reach  them  by  seven,  there 
was  no  need  to  ask  how  early  she  had  to  get 
herself  up.  For  a  few  pence  a  friendly  neigh- 
bour looked  in  and  attended  to  him  during  the 
day.  After  Mrs.  Maxfielde  left  me,  at  eight 
or  nine  or  ten  in  the  evening,  and  after  her 
half  hour's  walk  back,  she  had  to  prepare  his 
supper  and  put  him  to  bed;  and  again  I  did 
not  have  to  ask  how  late  she  put  her  own  weary 
self  there  too.  Old  age  was  once  said  to  begin 
at  forty-six;  we  are  more  strenuous  now;  but 
according  to  the  kindest  computations,  it  had 
well  overtaken  her.  And  yet  she  was  working 
harder  than  she  probably  ever  had  in  her 
youth,  with  less  rest  and  with  the  pleasing 
certainty  that  she  would  go  on  working  day 
in  and  day  out  and  never  succeed  in  securing 
the  mere  necessities  of  life.  She  might  have 
all  the  virtues,  sobriety,  industry,  economy, 
—  and  she  had,  —  and  the  best  she  could 

128 


Our  Charwomen 

hope  was  just  to  keep  soul  and  body  together 
for  her  husband  and  herself,  and  a  little  corner 
they  could  call  their  own.  She  did  not  tell  me 
how  the  husband  earned  a  living  before 
paralysis  kept  him  from  earning  anything  at 
all,  but  he  too  must  have  been  worthy  of  his 
name,  for  now  he  was  helpless,  the  parish 
allowed  him  "outdoor  relief"  to  the  extent  of 
three  shillings  and  sixpence,  or  about  eighty 
cents  a  week;  it  was  before  old-age  pensions 
had  been  invented  by  a  vote-touting  Govern- 
ment. This  munificent  sum,  paid  for  a  room 
somewhere  in  a  "Building,"  one  of  those 
gloomy  barracks  with  the  outside  iron  stair- 
way in  common,  where  clothes  are  forever 
drying  in  the  thick,  soot-laden  London  air,  and 
children  are  forever  howling  and  shrieking.  For 
everything  else  Mrs.  Maxfielde  had  to  provide. 
If  she  worked  every  day  except  Sunday,  her 
earnings  amounted  to  fifteen  shillings,  or  a 
little  less  than  four  dollars,  a  week.  But  there 
were  weeks  when  she  could  obtain  only  one 
day's  work,  weeks  when  she  could  obtain 
none,  and  she  and  her  husband  had  still  to 
live,  had  still  to  eat  something,  well  as  they  had 

129 


Our  House 

trained  themselves,  as  so  many  must,  in  the 
habit  of  not  eating  enough.  Here  was  an  eco- 
nomic problem  calculated  to  bewilder  more 
youthful  and  brilliant  brams  than  hers.  But 
she  never  complained,  she  never  grumbled, 
she  never  got  discouraged.  She  might  fly 
before  a  rat,  but  in  the  face  of  the  hopeless 
horrors  of  life  she  retained  her  beautiful 
placidity,  though  I,  when  I  realized  the  full 
weight  of  the  burden  she  had  to  bear,  began 
to  wonder  less  how,  than  why,  the  poor  live. 
Mrs.  Maxfielde  came  in  the  early  spring. 
By  the  time  winter,  with  its  fogs,  set  in,  age 
had  so  far  overtaken  her  that  she  could  not 
manage  to  attend  to  her  husband  and  his 
wants  and  then  drag  her  old  body  to  our 
chambers  by  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
It  was  she  who  gave  notice;  I  never  should  have 
had  the  courage.  We  parted  friends,  and  she 
was  so  amiable  as  not  to  deprive  me  of  her 
problems  with  her  services.  When  she  could 
not  work  for  me,  she  visited  me,  making  it  her 
rule  to  call  on  Monday  afternoon;  a  rule  she 
observed  with  such  regularity  that  I  fancied 
Monday  must  be  her  day  for  collecting  the 

130 


Our  Charwomen 

husband's  income  from  the  parish  and  her 
own  from  private  sources.  She  rarely  allowed 
a  week  to  pass  without  presenting  herself, 
always  appearing  in  the  same  Victorian  cos- 
tume and  carrying  off  the  interview  with  the 
same  Victorian  manner.  She  never  stooped  to 
beg,  but  her  hand  was  ready  for  the  coin 
which  I  slipped  into  it  with  the  embarrass- 
ment of  the  giver,  but  which  she  received  with 
enviable  calmness  and  a  little  curtsy.  The 
hour  of  her  visit  was  so  timed  that,  when  her 
talk  with  me  was  over,  she  could  adjourn  to 
the  kitchen  for  dinner  and,  under  Augustine's 
rule,  a  glass  of  wine,  which,  though  beer  would 
have  been  more  to  her  taste,  she  drank  as  a 
concession  to  the  poor  foreigner  who  did  not 
know  any  better. 

Before  a  second  winter  had  passed,  Mrs. 
Maxfielde  was  forced  to  admit  that  she  was 
too  old  for  anybody  to  want  her,  or  to  accept 
a  post  if  anybody  did.  But,  all  the  same,  the 
paralytic  clung  to  his  shadow  of  life  with  the 
obstinate  tenacity  of  the  human  derelict,  and 
she  clung  to  her  idea  of  home,  and  they  starved 
on  in  the  room  the  parish  paid  for  until  it  was 


Our  House 

a  positive  relief  to  me  when,  after  more  years 
of  starvation  than  I  cared  to  count,  she  came 
to  announce  his  death.  It  was  no  relief  to  her. 
She  was  full  of  grief,  and  permitted  nothing 
to  distract  her  from  the  luxury  she  made  of  it. 
The  coin  which  passed  from  my  hand  to  hers 
on  the  occasion  of  this  visit,  doubled  in  token 
of  condolence,  was  invested  in  an  elaborate 
crape  bonnet,  and  she  left  it  to  me  to  worry 
about  her  future.  I  might  have  afforded  to 
accept  her  trust  with  a  greater  show  of  enthu- 
siasm, for,  at  once  and  with  unlooked-for  in- 
telligence, the  parish  decided  to  allow  her  the 
same  weekly  sum  her  husband  had  received, 
and  Mrs.  Maxfielde,  endowed  with  this  large 
and  princely  income,  became  a  parent  so 
worthy  of  filial  devotion  that  a  daughter  I  had 
never  heard  of  materialized,  and  expressed  a 
desire  to  share  her  home  with  her  mother. 

The  daughter  was  married,  her  husband  was 
an  unskilled  labourer,  and  they  had  a  large 
and  increasing  family.  It  is  likely  that  Mrs. 
Maxfielde  paid  in  more  than  money  for  the 
shelter,  and  that  her  own  flesh-and-blood  was 
less  chary  than  strangers  would  have  been  in 

132 


Our  Charwomen 

employing  her  services,  and  less  mindful  of 
the  now  more  than  seventy  years  she  had 
toiled  to  live.  Perhaps  her  visits  at  this  period 
were  a  little  more  frequent,  perhaps  her  din- 
ners were  eaten  and  her  wine  drunk  with  a 
little  more  eagerness.  But  she  refrained  from 
any  pose,  she  indulged  in  no  heroics,  she  en- 
tertained me  with  no  whinings,  no  railings 
against  the  ingratitude  sharper  than  a  ser- 
pent's tooth.  However  she  got  her  ease,  it  was 
not  in  weeping,  and  what  she  had  to  bear  from 
her  daughter  she  bore  in  silence.  Her  Victorian 
sense  of  propriety  would  have  been  offended 
by  a  display  of  feeling.  She  became  so  pitiful 
a  figure  that  I  shrank  from  her  visits.  But  she 
was  content,  she  found  no  fault  with  life,  and 
wealth  being  a  matter  of  comparison,  I  am 
sure  she  was,  in  her  turn,  moved  to  pity  for 
the  more  unfortunate  who  had  not  kept  them- 
selves out  of  the  workhouse.  Had  she  had  her 
way,  she  would  have  been  willing  to  slave 
indefinitely  for  her  daughter  and  her  daugh- 
ter's children.  But  Death  was  wiser  and 
brought  her  the  rest  she  deserved  so  well  and 
so  little  craved. 

133 


Our  House 

A  couple  of  years  or  so  after  the  loss  of  her 
husband,  and  after  she  had  failed  to  appear, 
much  to  my  surprise,  on  three  or  four  Mon- 
days in  succession,  a  letter  came  from  her 
daughter  to  tell  me  that  never  again  would 
Monday  bring  Mrs.  Maxfielde  to  my  cham- 
bers. There  had  been  no  special  illness.  She 
had  just  worn  out,  that  was  all.  Her  time  had 
come  after  long  and  cruel  days  of  toil  and  her 
passing  was  unnoted,  for  hers  was  a  place 
easily  filled,  —  that  was  the  grisly  thing  about 
it.  J.  and  I  sent  a  wreath  of  flowers  for  the 
funeral,  knowing  that  she  would  have  wel- 
comed it  as  propriety's  crown  of  propriety, 
and  it  was  my  last  communication  with  the 
Maxfielde  family.  I  had  never  met  the 
daughter,  and  I  was  the  more  reluctant  to  go 
abroad  in  search  of  objects  of  charity  because 
they  had  such  an  inconsiderate  way  of  seek- 
ing me  out  in  my  own  kitchen.  I  was  already 
"suited"  with  another  old  woman  in  Mrs. 
Maxfielde's  place.  I  was  already  visited  by 
one  or  two  others.  In  fact,  I  was  so  surrounded 
by  old  women  that  Augustine,  when  she  first 
came  to  the  rescue,  used  to  laugh  with  the 

134 


Our  Charwomen 

insolence  of  youth  at  les  meilles  femmes  de 
Madame. 

My  new  old  woman  was  Mrs.  Burden.  Had 
I  hunted  all  London  over,  I  could  not  have 
found  a  more  complete  contrast  to  Mrs.  Max- 
fielde.  She  was  Irish,  with  no  respect  for  Vic- 
torian proprieties,  but  as  disreputable  looking 
an  old  charwoman  as  you  would  care  to  see; 
large  and  floppy  in  figure,  elephantine  in 
movement,  her  face  rough  and  dug  deep  by 
the  trenches  of  more  than  fifty  winters,  her 
hair  frowzy,  her  dress  ragged,  with  the  bodice 
always  open  at  the  neck  and  the  sleeves  always 
rolled  up  above  the  elbows,  her  apron  an  old 
calico  rag,  and  her  person  and  her  clothes 
profusely  sprinkled  with  snuff.  In  the  street 
she  wrapped  herself  in  a  horrible  grey  blanket- 
shawl,  and  on  top  of  her  disorderly  old  head 
set  a  little  battered  bonnet  with  two  wisps  of 
strings  dangling  about.  When  I  knew  her 
better  I  discovered  that  she  owned  a  black 
shawl  with  fringe,  and  a  bonnet  that  could 
tie  under  the  chin,  and  in  these  made  a  very 
fine  appearance.  But  they  were  reserved  for 
such  ceremonial  occasions  as  Mass  on  Sunday 

135 


Our  House 

or  the  funeral  of  a  friend,  and  at  other  times 
she  kept  to  the  costume  that  so  shamefully 
maligned  her.  For,  if  she  looked  like  one  of 
the  terrible  harpies  who  hang  about  the  public 
house  in  every  London  slum,  she  was  really 
the  most  sober  creature  in  the  world  and  never 
touched  a  drop,  Mr.  Burden,  who  drank  him- 
self into  an  early  grave,  having  drunk  enough 
for  two. 

I  cannot  remember  now  where  Mrs.  Burden 
came  from,  or  why,  when  I  had  seen  her  once, 
I  ever  consented  to  see  her  again.  But  she 
quickly  grew  into  a  fixture  in  our  chambers, 
and  it  was  some  eight  or  nine  years  before  I 
was  rid  of  her.  In  the  beginning  she  was  en- 
gaged for  three  mornings,  later  on  for  every 
morning,  in  the  week.  Her  hours  were  from 
seven  to  twelve,  during  which  time  my  chief 
object  was  to  keep  her  safely  shut  up  in  the 
kitchen,  for  no  degree  of  pretending  on  my 
part  could  make  me  believe  in  her  as  an  orna- 
ment or  a  credit  to  our  house.  It  mortified  me 
to  have  her  show  her  snuffy  old  face  at  the 
front  door,  and  I  should  never  have  dared  to 
send  her  on  the  many  messages  she  ran  for  me 

136 


Our  Charwomen 

had  she  not  been  known  to  everybody  in  the 
Quarter;  but  once  Mrs.  Burden  was  known  it 
was  all  right,  for  she  was  as  good  as  she  was 
sober.  Hers,  however,  was  the  goodness  of  the 
man  in  the  Italian  proverb  who  was  so  good 
that  he  was  good  for  nothing.  She  was  willing 
to  do  anything,  but  there  was  nothing  she 
could  do  well,  and  most  things  she  could  not 
do  at  all.  She  made  no  pretence  to  cook,  and 
if  she  had  I  could  not  have  eaten  anything 
of  her  cooking,  for  I  knew  snuff  must  flavour 
everything  she  touched.  To  have  seen  her 
big  person  and  frowzy  head  in  the  dining-room 
would  have  been  fatal  to  appetite  had  I  ever 
had  the  folly,  under  any  circumstances,  to  ask 
her  to  wait.  Nor  did  she  excel  in  scrubbing 
and  dusting.  She  was  successful  chiefly  in 
leaving  things  dirtier  than  she  found  them, 
and  Augustine,  whose  ideal  is  high  in  these 
matters,  insisted  that  Mrs.  Burden  spent  the 
morning  making  the  dirt  she  had  to  spend 
the  afternoon  cleaning  up.  There  were  times 
when  they  almost  came  to  blows,  for  the 
temper  of  both  was  hot,  and  more  than  once 
I  heard  Mrs.  Burden  threaten  to  call  in  the 

137 


Our  House 

police.  But  the  old  woman  had  her  uses. 
She  was  honesty  itself,  and  could  be  trusted 
with  no  matter  what,  —  from  the  key  of  our 
chambers,  when  they  were  left  empty,  to  the 
care  of  William  Penn,  when  no  other  compan- 
ion could  be  secured  for  him;  she  could  be 
relied  upon  to  pay  bills,  post  letters,  fetch 
parcels ;  and  she  was  as  punctual  as  Big  Ben 
at  Westminster.  I  do  not  think  she  missed  a 
day  in  all  the  years  she  was  with  me.  I  be- 
came accustomed,  too,  to  seeing  her  about, 
and  there  was  the  dread  —  or  conviction 
would  be  nearer  the  truth  —  that  if  I  let  her 
go  nobody  else  in  their  senses  would  take  her 
in. 

Mrs.  Burden  did  not  improve  with  time. 
She  never  condescended  to  borrow  qualities 
that  did  not  belong  to  her.  She  grew  more 
unwieldy  and  larger  and  floppier,  a  misfortune 
she  attributed  to  some  mysterious  malady 
which  she  never  named,  but  gloated  over  with 
the  pride  the  poor  have  in  their  diseases.  And 
she  grew  dirtier  and  more  disorderly,  continu- 
ing to  scorn  my  objection  to  her  opening  the 
front  door  with  the  shoe  she  was  blacking  still 

138 


Our  Charwomen 

on  her  hand,  or  to  her  bringing  me  a  letter 
wrapped  in  an  apron  grimier  than  her  grimy 
fingers.  Nothing  would  induce  her  not  to  call 
me  "Missis,"  which  displeased  me  more,  if 
for  other  reasons,  than  the  "Master"  she  as 
invariably  bestowed  upon  J.  She  bobbed  no 
curtsies.  When,  on  Saturdays,  coins  passed 
from  my  hand  to  hers,  she  spat  on  them 
before  she  put  them  in  her  pocket,  to  what 
purpose  I  have  not  to  this  day  divined.  Her 
best  friend  could  not  have  accused  her  of  any 
charm  of  manner,  but,  being  Irish,  she  escaped 
the  vulgarity  bred  in  the  London  slums.  In 
fact,  I  often  fancied  I  caught  gleams  of  what 
has  been  called  the  Celtic  Temperament 
shining  through  her.  She  had  the  warmth  of 
devotion,  the  exaggeration  of  loyalty,  the 
power  of  idealizing,  peculiar  to  her  race.  She 
was  almost  lyrical  in  her  praise  of  J.,  who 
stood  highest  in  her  esteem,  and  "Master 
good!  Master  good!"  was  her  constant  re- 
frain when  she  conversed  with  Augustine  in 
the  language  fitted  for  children  and  rich  in 
gesture,  which  was  her  well-meant  substitute 
for  French.  She  saw  him  glorified,  as  the  poets 

139 


Our  House 

of  her  country  see  their  heroes,  and  in  her  eyes 
he  loomed  a  splendid  Rothschild.  "Master, 
plenty  money,  plenty  money!"  she  would 
assure  Augustine,  and,  holding  up  her  apron 
by  the  two  corners,  and  well  out  from  her  so 
as  to  represent  a  capacious  bag,  add,  "apron 
full,  full,  full!" 

She  had  also  the  Celtic  lavishness  of  hos- 
pitality. I  remember  Whistler's  delight  one 
morning  when,  after  an  absence  from  London, 
he  received  at  our  front  door  a  welcome  from 
Mrs.  Burden,  whom  he  had  never  seen  be- 
fore and  now  saw  at  her  grimiest:  "Shure, 
Mr.  Whistler,  sir,  an  it's  quite  a  stranger  ye 
are.  It's  glad  I  am  to  see  ye  back,  sir,  and 
looking  so  well!"  Her  hospitality  was  ex- 
tended to  her  own  friends  when  she  had  the 
chance.  She  who  drank  nothing  could  not 
allow  Mr.  Pooley,  the  sweep,  who  was  her 
neighbour  and  cleaned  our  chimneys,  to  leave 
our  chambers  after  his  professional  services 
without  a  drop  of  whiskey  to  hearten  him  on 
his  sooty  way.  And,  though  you  would  still 
less  have  suspected  it,  romance  had  kept  its 
bloom  fresh  in  her  heart.  The  summer  the 

140 


Our  Charwomen 

Duke  of  York  was  married  I  could  not  under- 
stand her  interest  in  the  wedding,  as  until  then 
she  had  not  specially  concerned  herself  with 
the  affairs  of  royalty.  But  on  the  wedding- 
day  this  interest  reached  a  point  when  she  had 
to  share  it  with  somebody.  "Shure,  Missis, 
and  I  knows  how  it  is  meself.  Was  n't  I  after 
marrying  Burden's  brother  and  he  older  than 
Burden,  and  did  n't  he  go  and  die,  God  bless 
him!  and  leave  me  to  Burden.  And  shure  thin 
it 's  me  that  knows  how  the  poor  Princess  May, 
Lord  love  her!  is  feeling  this  blessed  day!" 

Not  only  the  memory,  but  her  pride  in  it, 
had  survived  the  years  which  never  brought 
romance  to  her  again.  The  one  decent  thing 
Burden  did  was  to  die  and  rid  the  world  of 
him  before  Mrs.  Burden  had  presented  him 
and  society  with  more  than  one  child,  a  boy. 
He  was  a  good  son,  she  said,  which  meant  that 
he  spent  his  boyhood  picking  up  odd  jobs 
and,  with  them,  odd  pence  to  help  his  mother 
along,  so  that  at  the  age  when  he  should  have 
been  able  to  do  something,  he  knew  how  to 
do  nothing,  and  had  not  even  the  physical 

strength  to  fit  him  for  the  more  profitable 

141 


Our  House 

kinds  of  unskilled  labour.  He  thought  himself 
lucky  when,  in  his  twentieth  year,  he  fell  into 
a  place  as  "washer-up"  in  a  cheap  restaurant 
which  paid  eighteen  shillings  a  week;  and  he 
was  so  dazzled  by  his  wealth  that  he  promptly 
married.  His  wife's  story  is  short:  she  drank. 
Mercifully,  like  Burden,  she  did  the  one  thing 
she  could  do  with  all  her  might  and  drank 
herself  to  death  with  commendable  swiftness, 
leaving  no  children  to  carry  on  the  family 
tradition.  Mrs.  Burden  was  once  more  alone 
with  her  son.  Between  them  they  earned 
twenty-eight  shillings  a  week  and  felt  them- 
selves millionaires.  Augustine,  for  some  rea- 
son, went  at  this  period  once  or  twice  to  her 
room,  over  the  dingy  shop  of  a  cheap  under- 
taker, and  reported  it  fairly  clean  and  pro- 
vided with  so  much  comfort  as  is  represented 
by  blankets  on  the  bed  and  a  kettle  on  the 
hob.  But*"after  a  bit  the  son  died,  the  cause, 
as  far  as  I  could  make  out,  a  drunken  father 
and  years  of  semi-starvation;  and  Mrs.  Burden 
had  to  face,  as  cheerfully  as  she  could,  an  old 
age  to  be  lived  out  in  loneliness  and  in  the 
vain  endeavour  to  make  both  ends  meet  on 

142 


Our  Charwomen 

eight  shillings  a  week,  or  less  if  she  lost  her 
job  with  me. 

She  did  lose  it,  poor  soul.  But  what  could 
I  do?  She  really  got  to  be  intolerably  dirty. 
Not  that  I  blamed  her.  I  probably  should  have 
been  much  dirtier  under  the  same  circum- 
stances. But  a  time  came  when  it  seemed  as 
if  we  must  give  up  either  Mrs.  Burden  or  our 
chambers,  and  to  give  our  chambers  up  when 
we  had  not  the  least  desire  to,  would  have 
been  a  desperate  remedy.  She  had  one  other 
piece  of  regular  work;  when  I  spoke  to  her 
about  going,  she  assured  me  that  her  neigh- 
bours had  been  waiting  for  years  to  get  her 
to  do  their  washing,  and  she  would  be  glad  to 
oblige  them;  and,  on  my  pressing  invitation, 
she  promised  to  run  in  and  see  me  often.  At 
this  new  stage  in  our  relations  she  showed  a 
rare  delicacy  of  feeling.  Mrs.  Maxfielde,  no 
longer  in  my  service,  was  eager  to  pay  me 
visits,  and  her  hand,  if  not  held  out  to  beg,  was 
open  to  receive.  Mrs.  Burden  did  not  keep  her 
promise  to  come,  she  gave  me  no  opportunity 
to  know  whether  her  hand  was  open  in  need 
or  shut  on  plenty.  She  was  of  the  kind  that 

143 


Our  House 

would  rather  starve  than  publish  their  desti- 
tution. I  might  have  preserved  an  easy  con- 
science in  her  regard  but  for  Mr.  Pooley,  the 
sweep.  The  first  time  he  returned  in  his  pro- 
fessional capacity  after  her  departure  and 
found  himself  deprived  of  the  usual  refresh- 
ment, he  was  indignant,  and,  in  consequence, 
he  was  very  gruff  and  short  with  me  when  I 
inquired  after  Mrs.  Burden.  She  had  n't  any 
work,  not  she,  and  he  supposed,  he  did,  that 
she  might  starve  for  all  some  people  cared. 

I  could  scarcely  ignore  so  broad  a  hint,  and 
I  had  her  round  that  same  morning,  for  her 
slum  was  close  by.  I  learned  from  her  that 
Mr.  Pooley,  if  gruff,  was  truthful.  She  had  no 
work,  had  not  had  any  for  weeks.  She  was  in 
arrears  to  her  landlord,  her  shawl  with  the 
fringe  and  her  blankets  were  in  pawn,  she 
had  n't  a  farthing  in  her  pocket.  J.,  to  whom 
I  refer  all  such  matters,  and  who  was  in  her 
debt  for  the  splendour  of  wealth  with  which 
she  had  endowed  him,  said  "it  was  all  non- 
sense,"—  by  "it"  I  suppose  he  meant  this 
sorry  scheme  of  things,  —  and  he  would  not 
let  her  go  without  the  money  to  pay  her 

144 


Our  Charwomen 

landlord,  not  only  for  arrears,  but  in  advance, 
and  also  to  redeem  her  possessions.  I  do  not 
think  she  was  the  less  grateful  if,  instead  of 
bobbing  humbly,  she  spat  upon  the  coins 
before  her  first  "Shu re  and  may  God  bless  ye, 
Master."  Nor  was  J.  comfortable  until  pro- 
visions had  followed  her  in  such  quantities 
that  he  would  not  have  to  be  bothered  by  the 
thought  of  her  starving  to  death,  at  any  rate 
for  some  days.  Even  after  that,  she  scrupu- 
lously kept  away.  Not  Christmas,  that  in 
London  brings  everybody  with  or  without 
excuse  begging  at  one's  door,  could  induce  her 
to  present  herself.  It  was  we  who  had  to  send 
for  her,  and,  in  a  land  where  begging  comes  so 
easily,  we  respected  her  for  her  independence. 
I  doubt  if  she  ever  got  more  work  to  do. 
She  never  received  outdoor  relief,  according 
to  her  because  of  some  misunderstanding  be- 
tween the  parish  church  and  hers,  for,  being 
Irish,  she  was  a  devout  Roman  Catholic.  I  do 
not  know  how  she  lived,  though  perhaps  they 
could  have  told  me  in  her  slum,  nobody,  they 
say,  being  as  good  to  the  poor  as  the  poor 
themselves.  But  it  was  part  of  her  delicacy 

145 


Our  House 

to  take  herself  off  our  hands  and  conscience 
within  less  than  a  year  of  her  leaving  us,  and 
to  die  in  her  room  peacefully  of  pneumonia, 
when  she  might  have  made  us  uncomfortable 
by  dying  of  starvation,  or  lingering  on  in  the 
workhouse.  Mr.  Pooley,  the  sweep,  brought 
this  news  too.  She  was  buried  decent,  he  vol- 
unteered; she  had  taken  care  of  that,  though 
as  poor  as  you  want  to  see.  A  good  old  woman, 
he  added,  and  it  was  all  the  obituary  she  had. 
He  was  right.  She  was  of  the  best,  but  then 
she  was  only  one  "of  the  millions  of  bubbles" 
poured  into  existence  to-day  to  vanish  out  of 
it  to-morrow,  of  whom  the  world  is  too  busy 
to  keep  count. 

After  Mrs.  Burden,  I  went  to  the  Quartier — 
the  French  Quarter  in  Soho  —  for  a  char- 
woman. Had  I  been  tempted,  as  I  never  was, 
to  believe  in  the  entente  cordiale,  of  which  Eng- 
land was  just  then  beginning  to  make  great  cap- 
ital, affairs  in  my  own  kitchen  would  have  con- 
vinced me  of  the  folly  of  it.  Things  there  had 
come  to  a  pass  when  any  pretence  of  cordial- 
ity, except  the  cordial  dislike  which  France 
and  England  have  always  cherished  for  each 

146 


Our  Charwomen 

other  and  always  will,  had  been  given  up,  and 
if  I  hoped  to  escape  threats  of  police  and  per- 
petual squabbles  on  the  subject  of  cleanliness, 
there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  adopt  a  single- 
race  policy.  When  it  came  to  deciding  which 
that  race  should  be,  I  did  not  hesitate,  having 
found  out  for  myself  that  the  French  are  as 
clean  as  the  English  believe  themselves  to  be. 
The  Quartier  could  not  be  more  French  if  it 
were  in  the  heart  of  France.  There  is  nothing 
French  that  is  not  to  be  had  in  it,  from  snails 
and  boudin  to  the  Petit  Journal  and  the  latest 
thing  in  aperitifs.  The  one  language  heard  is 
French,  when  it  is  not  Italian,  and  the  people 
met  there  have  an  animation  that  is  not  a 
characteristic  of  Kensington  or  Bayswater. 
The  only  trouble  is  that  if  the  snails  are  of 
the  freshest  and  the  aperitifs  bear  the  best 
mark,  the  quality  of  the  people  imported  into 
the  Quartier  is  more  doubtful.  Many  have  left 
their  country  for  their  country's  good.  When 
I  made  my  mission  known,  caution  was  recom- 
mended to  me  by  Madame  who  presides  chez 
le  patissier,  and  Monsieur  le  Gros,  as  he  is 
familiarly  known,  who  provides  me  with  gro- 


Our  House 

ceries,  and  M.  Edmond  from  whom  I  buy  my 
vegetables  and  salads  at  the  Quatre  Saisons. 
England,  in  the  mistaken  name  of  liberty,  then 
opened  her  door  to  the  riff-raff  of  all  nations, 
and  French  prisons  were  the  emptier  for  the 
indiscriminate  hospitality  of  Soho,  or  so  I  was 
assured  by  the  decent  French  who  feel  the  dis- 
honour the  Quartier  is  to  France. 

Caution  served  me  well  in  the  first  instance, 
for  I  began  my  experience  in  French  char- 
women with  Marie,  a  little  Bretonne,  young, 
cheerful,  and  if,  like  a  true  Bretonne,  not  over 
clean  by  nature,  so  willing  to  be  bullied  into 
it  that  she  got  to  scrub  floors  and  polish 
brasses  as  if  she  liked  it.  She  never  sulked, 
never  minded  a  scolding  from  Augustine  who 
scolds  us  all  when  we  need  it,  did  not  care  how 
long  she  stayed  over  time,  had  a  laugh  that 
put  one  in  good  humour  to  hear  it,  and  such 
a  healthy  appetite  that  she  doubled  my  weekly 
bill  at  the  baker's.  Even  Augustine  found  no 
fault.  But  one  fault  there  was.  She  was  mar- 
ried. In  the  course  of  time  a  small  son  arrived 
who  made  her  laugh  more  gaily  than  ever, 

though  he  added  a  third  to  the  family  of  a  not 

148 


Our  Charwomen 

too  brilliant  young  man  with  an  income  of  a 
pound  a  week,  and  I  was  again  without  a  char- 
woman. 

Marie  helped  me  to  forget  caution,  and  I 
put  down  the  stories  heard  in  the  Quartier  to 
libel.  But  I  had  my  awakening.  She  was  suc- 
ceeded by  another  Bretonne,  a  wild,  fright- 
ened-looking creature,  who,  on  her  second  day 
with  me,  when  I  went  into  the  kitchen  to  speak 
to  her,  sat  down  abruptly  in  the  fireplace,  the 
fire  by  good  luck  still  unlit,  and  I  did  not  have 
to  ask  an  explanation,  for  it  was  given  me  by 
the  empty  bottle  on  the  dresser.  Her  dull,  sot- 
tish face  haunted  me  for  days  afterwards,  and 
I  was  oppressed,  as  I  am  sure  she  never  was, 
by  the  thought  of  the  blundering  fate  that  had 
driven  her  from  the  windswept  shores  of  her 
own  Brittany  to  the  foul  slums  of  London. 

But  I  could  not  take  over  the  mysteries  and 
miseries  of  Soho  with  its  charwomen;  it  was 
about  as  much  as  I  could  do  to  keep  up  with 
the  procession  that  followed  her.  There  was 
no  variety  of  femme  de  menage  in  the  Quartier 
that  I  did  not  sample,  nor  one  who  was  not 
the  heroine  of  a  tragedy  or  romance,  too  often 

149 


Our  House 

not  in  retrospection  or  anticipation,  but  at  its 
most  psychological  moment.  I  remember  an- 
other Marie,  good-looking,  but  undeniably 
elderly,  whose  thoughts  were  never  with  the 
floor  she  was  scrubbing  or  the  range  she  was 
black-leading,  because  they  were  absorbed  in 
the  impecunious  youth,  half  her  age,  with 
whom  she  had  fallen  in  love  in  the  fashion  of 
to-day,  and  for  whom  she  had  given  up  a  life 
of  comparative  ease  with  her  husband,  a  well- 
paid  chef.  I  remember  a  Marthe,  old  and  with- 
ered, whose  tales  of  want  were  so  heartrending 
that  Augustine  lavished  upon  her  all  the  old 
clothes  of  the  establishment  and  all  the  "cold 
pieces"  in  the  kitchen,  but  who,  we  learned 
afterwards,  had  a  neat  little  bank-account  at 
the  Credit  Lyonnais  and  a  stocking  stuffed  to 
overflowing  in  the  bare  garret  where  she  shiv- 
ered and  starved.  I  remember  a  trim  Julie, 
whose  debts  left  behind  in  France  kept  her 
nose  to  the  grindstone,  but  who  found  it  some 
compensation  to  work  for  J. :  she  felt  a  peculiar 
sympathy  for  all  artists,  she  said,  for  the  good 
reason,  which  seemed  to  us  a  trifle  remote,  that 
her  husband's  mother  had  been  foster-mother 

150 


Our  Charwomen 

to  le  grand  mditre,  M.  Detaille.  And  there  was 
a  Blanche,  abandoned  by  her  husband,  and  left 
with  three  small  children  to  feed,  clothe,  and 
bring  up  somehow.  And  there  were  I  have  for- 
gotten how  many  more,  each  with  a  story 
tragic  or  pitiful,  until  it  came  to  Clementine, 
and  her  story  was  so  sordid  that  when  I  parted 
with  her  I  shook  the  dust  of  Soho  from  off  my 
feet,  and  imported  from  the  Pas-de-Calais  a 
little  girl  whose  adventures  I  hoped  were  still 
in  the  future  which,  if  I  could  manage  it, 
would  be  postponed  indefinitely.  It  may  be 
true  that  every  woman  has  one  good  novel 
in  her  life,  but  I  did  not  see  why  I  should 
keep  on  engaging  charwomen  to  prove  it. 


V 

Clementine 


CLEMENTINE 

SHE  drifted  in  from  the  Quartier,  but  the 
slovenliness  and  shabby  finery  of  her  dress 
made  it  hard  to  believe  she  was  French.  It 
was  harder  to  believe  she  was  grown  up  when 
she  began  to  talk,  for  her  voice  was  that  of  a 
child,  a  high  shrill  treble,  with  a  babyish  lisp, 
losing  itself  in  giggles.  And  she  was  so  short, 
so  small,  that  she  might  easily  have  passed 
herself  off  as  a  little  girl,  but  for  the  marks 
experience  had  left  upon  her  face.  I  suppose 
she  was  not  much  under  thirty  when  she  first 
came  to  me. 

How  cruel  this  experience  had  been  she  took 
immediate  care  to  explain.  With  her  first  few 
words  she  confided  to  me  that  she  was  hungry, 
and,  in  my  embarrassment  on  hearing  it,  I 
engaged  her  before  it  occurred  to  me  to  ask  for 
references.  Hunger  does  not  exactly  qualify  a 
woman,  however  willing,  for  the  rough  work 

155 


Our  House 

that  must  be  done  in  a  house,  and  that  it  is  so 
surprising  anybody  ever  should  be  willing  to 
do.  I  engaged  her  to  scrub  the  floors,  black 
the  shoes,  clean  the  fireplaces,  polish  the 
brasses,  —  to  pass  every  morning,  except  Sun- 
day, from  seven  to  two,  in  fighting  the  London 
dirt  for  me,  and  struggling  through  all  those 
disagreeable  and  tiresome  tasks  that  not  any 
amount  of  money  would  induce  me  to  strug- 
gle through  for  myself. 

As  her  duties  were  of  a  kind  usually  kept  in 
the  domestic  background,  and  as  she  brought 
to  them  an  energy  her  hunger  had  not  pre- 
pared me  for,  an  occasional  bon  jour  when  we 
met  might  have  been  the  extent  of  my  per- 
sonal relations  with  her,  had  it  not  been  for 
my  foolish  anxiety  as  to  the  state  of  her  appe- 
tite. I  had  kept  house  long  enough  to  under- 
stand the  mistake  of  meddling  with  the  affairs 
of  my  servants,  but  Clementine,  with  her  ab- 
surd little  voice  and  giggle,  seemed  much  less 
a  servant  than  a  child  making  believe  to  be 
one.  Besides,  I  found  that,  though  I  can  hear 
of  unknown  thousands  starving  in  London 
without  feeling  called  upon  to  interfere,  it  is 

156 


Clementine 

another  matter  to  come  face  to  face  with  a 
hungry  individual  under  my  own  roof. 

Augustine,  who  was  then,  as  she  is  now,  the 
prop  and  mainstay  of  our  life,  reassured  me; 
Clementine,  it  seemed,  from  the  moment  of 
her  arrival,  had  been  eating  as  voraciously 
as  if  she  were  bent  not  only  on  satisfying  the 
present,  but  on  making  up  for  the  past  and 
providing  against  the  future.  She  could  not 
pass  the  interval  between  eight  o'clock  coffee 
and  the  noonday  lunch  without  un  petit  gouter 
to  sustain  her.  At  all  hours  she  kept  munching 
bits  of  crust,  and  after  the  heartiest  meal  she 
would  fall,  famished,  upon  our  plates  as  they 
came  from  the  dining-room,  devouring  any 
odd  scraps  left  on  them,  feasting  on  cheese- 
rinds  and  apple-parings,  or,  though  I  regret 
to  have  to  record  it,  licking  up  the  gravy  and 
grease,  if  there  was  nothing  better.  Indeed, 
her  condition  was  one  of  such  chronic  hunger 
that  Augustine  grew  alarmed  and  thought  a 
doctor  should  be  consulted.  I  put  it  down  to 
the  long  succession  of  her  lean  years,  and 
before  the  facts  convinced  me  that  Clementine 
was  "all  stomach  and  no  soul,"  her  appetite 

157 


Our  House 

was  a  great  deal  on  my  mind,  and  made  me 
far  more  preoccupied  with  her  than  was  wise. 
My  inquiries  into  the  state  of  Clementine's 
appetite  were  the  reason  for  many  conversa- 
tions. I  have  no  doubt  that  at  first  I  encour- 
aged her  confidence,  so  unfailing  was  my  de- 
light in  the  lisping  prattle,  interrupted  by 
giggles,  with  which  they  were  made.  Even  J., 
who  as  a  rule  is  glad  to  leave  all  domestic  mat- 
ters to  me,  would  stop  and  speak  to  her  for  the 
sake  of  hearing  her  talk.  And  she  was  a  child 
in  so  many  other  ways.  She  had  the  vanity 
as  well  as  the  voice  of  a  little  girl.  She  was 
pretty  after  a  fashion,  but  it  always  amazed 
me  that  anybody  who  was  so  hungry  could  be 
so  vain.  When  I  am  hungry  I  am  too  demor- 
alized to  care  how  I  look.  But  Clementine's 
respect  for  her  appearance  was,  if  anything, 
stronger  than  her  craving  for  food.  She  would 
have  gone  without  a  meal  rather  than  have 
appeared  out  of  the  fashion  set  by  her  London 
slum.  Her  hair  might  be  half  combed,  —  that 
was  a  question  of  personal  taste,  —  but  she 
could  not  show  herself  abroad  unless  it  was 
brought  down  over  her  forehead  in  the  low 

158 


Clementine 

wave  required  by  the  mode  of  the  moment, 
and  hidden  at  the  back  under  a  flat,  overgrown 
jockey-cap  fastened  on  with  long  pins.  Her 
skirt  might  be  —  or  rather  was  —  frayed  at 
the  bottom,  and  her  jacket  worn  to  shreds, 
but  she  could  never  neglect  to  tie  round  her 
neck  a  bit  of  white  tulle  or  ribbon,  however 
soiled  or  faded.  Nor  could  she  be  persuaded  to 
run  the  shortest  errand  before  this  tulle  or  rib- 
bon, taken  off  for  work,  had  been  tied  on  again, 
the  low  wave  of  hair  patted  well  in  place,  and 
the  jockey-cap  stuck  at  the  correct  angle. 

It  was  useless  to  try  and  hurry  her.  She 
did  not  care  how  urgent  the  errand  was  to  us, 
her  concern  was  entirely  for  what  people  in  the 
street  might  think  of  her  if  any  one  detail  of 
her  toilet  was  neglected.  Augustine,  who  for 
herself  was  disdainful  of  the  opinion  of  ces 
sales  Anglais  and  ran  her  errands  en  cheveux 
as  if  she  were  still  in  France,  would  scold  and 
thunder  and  represent  to  Clementine  that 
people  in  the  street  had  something  better  to  do 
than  to  think  of  her  at  all.  When  Augustine 
scolds,  I  am  always,  to  be  honest,  a  little  afraid. 
But  Clementine  would  listen  giggling,  and 

159 


Our  House 

V 

refuse  to  budge  an  inch  until  the  last  touch 
had  been  given  to  her  hair  and  to  her  dress. 
After  working  time  she  could  not  start  for 
home  until  she  had  spent  half  an  hour  and 
more  before  the  glass  in  the  kitchen  arranging 
her  rags.  In  her  own  country  her  vanity  would 
have  been  satisfied  only  by  the  extreme  neat- 
ness and  simplicity  of  her  dress.  In  England 
she  had  borrowed  the  untidiness  and  tawdri- 
ness  that  degrade  the  English  poor.  But  if 
the  educated  French,  who  ought  to  know  that 
they  are  the  most  civilized  people  in  the  world, 
grow  more  English  than  the  English  when  they 
become  Anglicized  at  all,  I  could  scarcely 
blame  Clementine  for  her  weakness. 

To  one  form  of  her  untidiness,  however,  I 
objected  though,  had  I  known  what  was  to 
come  of  my  objection,  I  would  have  borne 
with  worse  in  silence.  She  never  wore  an  apron, 
and,  in  her  stained  and  tattered  dress,  her 
appearance  was  disreputable  even  for  a  char- 
woman. She  might  be  as  slovenly  as  she  chose 
in  the  street,  that  was  her  affair;  but  it  was 
mine  once  she  carried  her  slovenliness  inside 
my  four  walls,  especially  as  in  chambers  ser- 

160 


Clementine 

vants  at  work  are  more  apt  to  be  stumbled 
across  than  in  a  house,  and  as  it  was  her  duty 
at  times  to  open  the  front  door.  I  spoke  to  her 
on  the  subject,  suggesting  the  value  of  aprons, 
if  only  as  defences.  The  words  were  scarcely 
out  of  my  mouth  than  I  would  have  given 
worlds  to  take  them  back  again.  For  when 
Clementine  began  to  talk  the  difficulty  was 
to  stop  her,  and  long  before  she  finished  ex- 
plaining why  she  wore  no  aprons,  I  had  learned 
a  great  deal  more  about  her  than  I  bargained 
for:  among  other  things,  that  her  previous 
places  had  been  chiefly  chez  les  femmes ;  that 
she  wanted  to  give  up  working  for  them ;  that, 
after  leaving  her  last  place,  she  could  get 
nothing  to  do  in  any  maison  bourgeoise ;  that 
she  had  no  money  and  was  very  hungry, — 
what  Clementine's  hunger  meant  she  did  not 
have  to  tell  me;  that  her  little  Ernest  was  also 
hungry,  and  also  la  vieille  grandmere  ;  that  her 
little  Ernest  was  her  son, —  "Oui,  Madame,  je 
serais  franc  he ,  fai  un  fils  mais  pas  un  mari"; 
that  la  vieille  grandmere  was  an  old  woman 
she  had  taken  in,  partly  to  look  after  him, 
partly  out  of  sheer  shiftlessness;  that  they 

161 


Our  House 

could  not  starve;  and  that  —  well  —  all  her 
aprons  were  au  clou. 

This  sudden  introduction  of  her  little  Ernest 
was  a  trifle  disconcerting,  but  it  was  none  of 
my  business  how  many  people  depended  on 
Clementine,  nor  how  many  of  her  belongings 
were  in  pawn.  I  had  vowed  never  again  to 
give  sympathy,  much  less  help,  to  anybody 
who  worked  for  me,  since  I  knew  to  my  cost 
the  domestic  disaster  to  which  benevolence 
of  this  sort  may  lead.  I  gave  her  advice  in- 
stead. I  recommended  greater  thrift,  and  in- 
sisted that  she  must  save  from  her  wages 
enough  to  get  her  aprons  out  of  pawn  imme- 
diately, though  I  left  it  to  a  more  accomplished 
political  economist  than  I  to  show  how,  with 
three  to  provide  for,  she  could  save  out  of 
what  barely  provided  for  one.  However,  she 
agreed.  She  said,  "Oui,  Madame,  Madame  a 
raison";  and  for  the  next  week  or  two  I  did 
my  best  to  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  she 
still  went  apronless. 

At  this  juncture,  her  little  Ernest  fell  ill; 
now  that  I  had  heard  of  him,  he  took  good  care 
that  I  should  not  forget  him.  For  three  days 

162 


Clementine 

there  was  no  sign  of  Clementine;  I  had  no 
word  from  her.  At  the  end  of  the  first  day,  I 
imagined  a  horrid  tragedy  of  starvation;  by 
the  second,  I  was  reproaching  myself  as  an 
accessory;  by  the  evening  of  the  third,  I  could 
stand  it  no  longer,  and  Augustine  was  de- 
spatched to  find  out  what  was  wrong.  The 
child's  illness  was  not  very  serious,  but,  inci- 
dentally, Augustine  found  out  a  good  deal 
besides.  Clementine's  room,  in  an  unlovely 
Workmen's  Building,  was  unexpectedly  clean, 
but  to  keep  it  clean  was  the  easier  because  it 
was  so  bare.  Her  bed,  which  she  shared  with 
her  little  Ernest,  was  a  mattress  on  the  floor 
in  one  corner,  with  not  a  sheet  or  a  blanket  to 
cover  it;  la  vieille  grand-mere  slept  in  a  nest  of 
newspapers  in  another  corner,  with  a  roll  of 
rags  for  a  pillow.  Bedsteads,  sheets,  covers, 
had  gone  the  way  of  the  aprons, — they,  too, 
were  au  clou.  The  thrift  I  had  advised  scarcely 
met  so  acute  a  case  of  poverty. '  I  was  not  at 
all  anxious  to  burden  myself  with  Clementine's 
destitution  in  addition  to  her  hunger,  and  to 
get  it  out  of  my  mind,  I  tried,  with  my  usual 
generosity,  to  hand  over  the  difficulty  to  J. 

163 


Our  House 

I  cannot  say  that  he  accepted  it  as  uncondi- 
tionally as  I  could  have  wished,  for  if  he  was 
positive  that  something  must  be  done  at  once, 
he  had  as  little  doubt  that  it  was  for  me  to 
discover  the  way  of  doing  it. 

What  I  did  was  simple,  though  I  dare  say 
contrary  to  every  scientific  principle  of  charity. 
I  told  her  to  bring  me  her  pawn-tickets  and 
I  would  go  over  them  with  her.  She  brought 
them,  a  pocketful,  the  next  day,  throwing 
them  down  on  the  table  before  me  and  sorting 
them  as  if  for  a  game  of  cards,  with  many 
giggles,  and  occasional  cries  of  "Tiens!  this 
is  my  old  blue  apron";  or,  "Mon  Dieu!  this 
is  my  nice  warm  grey  blanket."  Her  delight 
could  not  have  been  greater  had  it  been  the 
apron  or  the  blanket  itself.  All  told,  her  debts 
amounted  to  no  very  ruinous  sum,  and  I 
arranged  to  pay  them  off  and  give  her  a  fresh 
start  if,  on  her  side,  she  was  prepared  to 
work  harder  and  practise  stricter  economy.  I 
pointed  out  that  as  I  did  not  need  her  in  the 
afternoon,  she  had  a  half  day  to  dispose  of, 
and  that  she  should  hunt  for  something  to  fill 
it.  She  promised  everything  I  asked,  and 
164 


Clementine 

more,  and  I  hoped  that  this  was  the  last  of 
my  sharing  her  burdens. 

It  might  have  been,  but  for  her  little  Ernest. 
I  do  believe  that  child  was  born  for  no  other 
end  than  my  special  annoyance.  His  illness 
was  only  the  beginning.  When  he  was  well, 
she  brought  him  to  see  me  one  afternoon, 
nominally  that  he  might  thank  me,  but  really, 
I  fear,  in  hope  of  an  extra  sixpence  or  shilling. 
He  was  five  years  old  and  fairly  large  and  well 
developed  for  his  age,  but  there  could  never 
have  been,  there  never  could  be,  a  less  attrac- 
tive child.  His  face  had  none  of  the  prettiness 
of  his  mother's,  though  all  the  shrewdness: 
in  knowledge  of  the  gutter  he  looked  fifty. 
Then  and  afterwards,  ashamed  as  I  was  of  it, 
I  instinctively  shrank  from  him.  Anywhere, 
except  in  the  comic  ballad,  a  "horribly  fast 
little  cad"  of  a  baby  is  as  tragic  a  figure  as  I 
care  to  encounter,  and  to  me  the  little  Ernest 
was  all  the  more  so  because  of  the  repugnance 
with  which  he  inspired  me.  Clementine  made 
a  great  pretence  of  adoring  him.  She  carried 
a  sadly  battered  photograph  of  him  in  her 
pocket,  and  would  pull  it  out  at  intervals  when 

165 


Our  House 

anybody  was  looking,  and  kiss  it  rapturously. 
Otherwise  her  admiration  took  the  form  of 
submitting  to  his  tyranny.  She  could  do  far 
less  with  him  than  he  with  her,  and  la  meille 
grandmere  was  as  wax  in  his  rough  little  hands. 
His  mornings,  while  his  mother  was  at  work, 
were  spent  in  the  grimy  London  courts  and 
streets,  where  children  swarm  like  vermin  and 
babies  grow  old  in  vice.  In  the  afternoon,  after 
she  left  our  chambers,  he  dragged  her  through 
the  Quartier,  from  shop  to  shop,  she  with  her 
giggling  "Bon  jour,  M.Edmond,"  or  "Comment 
ca  va,  Madame  Pierre"  —  for  though  we  live 
in  London  we  are  not  of  it,  but  of  France,  — 
he  with  his  hand  held  out  for  the  cakes  and 
oranges  and  pennies  he  knew  would  drop  into 
it:  a  pair  of  the  most  accomplished  beggars  in 
London. 

As  time  went  on,  and  Clementine  did  not 
find  the  extra  work  for  her  afternoons  that  she 
had  promised  to  find,  I  realized  that  she  would 
keep  on  wasting  her  free  half  day,  and  that  he 
would  go  from  bad  to  worse  if  he  were  not  got 
away  from  her  and  out  of  the  streets.  I  should 
have  known  better  than  to  occupy  myself 

1 66 


Clementine 

with  him,  but  his  old  shrewd  face  haunted  me 
until  I  remonstrated  with  Clementine,  and 
represented  to  her  the  future  she  was  prepar- 
ing for  him.  If  she  could  not  take  care  of  him, 
she  should  send  him  to  school  where  there  were 
responsible  people  who  could.  I  suggested  a 
charitable  institution  of  some  kind  in  France 
where  he  would  be  brought  up  among  her 
people.  But  this  she  fought  against  with  a 
determination  I  could  not  understand,  until 
it  came  out  that  she  had  profited  by  the  Eng- 
lish law  which  forces  a  father  to  contribute 
to  his  illegitimate  child's  support,  and  from 
Ernest's  she  received  weekly  three  shillings 
and  sixpence.  She  much  preferred  to  risk  her 
little  Ernest's  morals  than  an  income  that 
came  of  itself,  and  she  feared  she  could  no 
longer  claim  it  if  he  were  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  English  courts.  She  was  as  doubtful  of  the 
result  if  he  were  got  into  a  charity  school  in 
England,  for  if  he  cost  her  nothing  the  father 
might  not  be  compelled  to  pay.  She  could  be 
obstinate  on  occasions,  and  I  was  in  despair. 
But  by  some  fortunate  chance,  a  convent  at 
Hampstead  was  heard  of  where  the  weekly 

167 


Our  House 

charge  would  just  be  covered  by  the  father's 
allowance,  and  as  Clementine  could  find  no 
argument  against  it,  she  had  to  give  in. 

I  breathed  freely  again,  but  I  was  not  to  be 
let  off  so  easily.  It  was  simpler  to  get  mixed 
up  in  Clementine's  affairs  than  to  escape  from 
them.  At  the  convent,  the  nuns  had  learned 
wisdom,  and  they  demanded  to  be  paid  weekly 
in  advance.  I  must  have  waited  until  Judg- 
ment Day  if  I  had  depended  upon  Clementine 
to  be  in  advance  with  anything,  and  in  self- 
defence  I  offered  to  pay  the  first  month.  But 
this  settled,  at  once  there  was  another  ob- 
stacle to  dispose  of.  A  trousseau  was  required 
with  the  little  Ernest,  and  he  had  no  clothes 
except  those  on  his  back.  I  provided  the 
trousseau.  Then  the  little  Ernest  rebelled  and 
refused  to  hear  of  school  unless  he  was  sup- 
plied with  a  top,  a  mechanical  boat,  a  balloon, 
and  I  scarcely  remember  what  besides.  I  sup- 
plied them.  Clementine,  on  her  side,  began  to 
look  harassed  and  careworn,  and  I  never  ven- 
tured to  ask  what  conditions  he  exacted  of  her, 
but  it  was  a  relief  to  everybody  when,  after 
much  shopping  and  innumerable  coaxings  and 

1 68 


Clementine 

bribes  and  scenes,  at  last  she  got  her  little 
Ernest  off  her  hands. 

But  if  he  was  off  hers,  she  was  more  than 
ever  on  mine.  He  gave  her  a  perpetual  subject 
of  conversation.  There  were  days  when  I 
seemed  to  hear  her  prattling  in  the  kitchen 
from  the  moment  she  came  until  the  moment 
she  left,  and  to  a  good  deal  of  her  prattle  I  had 
to  listen.  She  made  it  her  duty  to  report  his 
progress  to  me,  and  the  trouble  was  that  she 
could  never  get  through  without  confiding  far 
more  about  her  own,  in  the  past  as  in  the  pre- 
sent. She  might  begin  innocently  with  the  fit  of 
his  new  clothes,  but  as  likely  as  not  she  would 
end  with  revelations  of  unspeakable  horror.  At 
least  I  could  not  find  fault  with  Clementine's 
confidences  for  their  mildness  or  monotony. 
In  her  high,  shrill,  lisping  treble,  as  if  she  were 
reciting  a  lesson,  and  with  the  air  of  a  naughty 
girl  trying  to  keep  back  her  giggles,  she  would 
tell  me  the  most  appalling  details  of  her  life. 

I  had  not  dreamed  that  out  of  Zola  or  Defoe 
a  woman  could  go  through  such  adventures, 
or  that,  if  she  could,  it  would  be  possible  for 
her  to  emerge  a  harmless  charwoman  doing 

169 


Our  House 

the  commonplace  work  of  a  household  which 
I  flatter  myself  is  respectable,  for  a  few  shil- 
lings a  week.  Of  poverty,  of  evil,  of  shame, 
of  disgrace,  there  was  nothing  she  had  not 
known;  and  yet  as  I  saw  her  busy  and  happy 
over  her  scrubbing  and  washing  and  polishing 
in  our  chambers,  I  could  have  believed  she  had 
never  done  anything  less  guileless  in  all  her 
thirty  years.  She  had  a  curiously  impersonal 
way  of  relating  these  adventures,  as  if  they 
were  no  concern  of  hers  whatever.  The  most 
dramatic  situations  seemed  to  have  touched 
her  as  little  as  the  every-day  events  in  her 
sordid  struggle  for  bread,  though  she  was  not 
without  some  pride  in  the  variety  of  her  expe- 
rience. When  Augustine  warned  her  that  her 
idleness  was  preparing  for  her  a  bed  on  the  Em- 
bankment and  daily  food  in  a  soup-kitchen, 
"Eh  bien?  why  not?"  she  giggled;  "I  have 
been  on  the  streets,  I  have  been  in  prison,  I 
have  been  in  the  workhouse,  I  have  seen  every- 
thing— fai  tout  vu,  moil  Why  not  that  too?" 
With  her,  there  was  no  shrinking  from  the 
workhouse,  as  with  the  respectable  poor,  "  Ce 
n'est  pas  fait  pour  les  chiens,"  she  reasoned, 

170 


Clementine 

and  looked  upon  it  as  an  asylum  held  in  re- 
serve. 

Her  boast  that  she  had  seen  everything  was 
no  exaggeration,  her  everything  meaning  the 
hideous  side  of  life  which  those  who  see  only 
the  other  try  so  hard  to  shut  their  eyes  to. 
"What  would  you  have?"  she  asked  me  more 
than  once,  "I  was  a  bastard  and  a  foundling"; 
as  if  with  such  a  beginning,  it  would  have  been 
an  inconsistency  on  her  part  to  turn  out  any 
better  than  she  was.  That  she  had  started  life 
as  a  little  lost  package  of  humanity,  left  at  the 
door  of  a  house  for  les  en/ants  trouves  not  far 
from  Boulogne,  never  caused  her  shame  and  re- 
gret. From  a  visit  paid  by  her  mother  to  the 
Institution  during  her  infancy,  there  could  re- 
main no  doubt  of  her  illegitimacy,  but  it  was  a 
source  of  pleasure  to  her,  and  also  of  much 
agreeable  speculation. 

"How  can  I  be  sure,"  she  said  to  me,  "that, 
though  my  mother  was  a  cook,  my  father 
might  not  have  been  a  prefet,  or  even  a  prince?" 

For  practical  purposes  she  knew  no  parents 
save  the  peasants  who  brought  her  up.  The 
State  in  France,  thrifty  as  the  people,  makes 

171 


Our  House 

the  children  abandoned  to  it  a  source  of  profit 
to  the  hard-working  poor.  Clementine  was  put 
out  to  nurse.  The  one  spark  of  genuine  affec- 
tion she  ever  showed  was  for  the  woman  to 
whose  care  she  fell,  and  of  whom  she  always 
spoke  as  ma  mere,  with  a  tenderness  very  differ- 
ent from  her  giggling  adoration  of  the  little 
Ernest.  Incessant  labour  was  the  rule  in  ma 
mere's  house,  and  food  was  not  too  abundant, 
but  of  what  there  was  Clementine  had  her 
share,  though  I  fancy  the  scarcity  then  was  the 
origin  of  the  terrible  hunger  that  consumed 
her  throughout  her  life.  About  this  hunger 
her  story  revolved,  so  that,  while  she  talked  of 
the  past,  I  could  seldom  get  far  away  from  it. 
She  recalled  little  else  of  the  places  the  Institu- 
tion found  for  her  as  servant.  The  State  in 
France  is  as  wise  as  it  is  thrifty,  and  does  not 
demoralize  its  foundlings  by  free  gifts,  but, 
when  the  time  comes,  makes  them  work,  ap- 
propriating their  wages  until  it  has  been  paid 
back  the  money  they  have  cost  it. 

Clementine  went  into  service  young.    She 
also  went  into  it  hungry,  and  life  became  a 

never-ending  struggle  for  food.    In  one  place 

172 


Clementine 

she  was  reduced  to  such  straits  that  she  de- 
voured a  dish  of  poisoned  meat  prepared  for 
the  stray  cats  of  the  neighbourhood,  and, 
though  it  brought  her  almost  to  death's  door, 
she  could  still  recall  it  as  a  feast.  In  another, 
a  small  country  grocery  store,  she  would  steal 
down  in  the  night,  trembling  with  fear,  to  hunt 
for  bits  of  candy  and  crackers,  and,  safe  in  bed 
again,  would  have  to  fight  for  them  with  the 
rats  that  shared  her  garret.  And  her  tale  of 
this  period  grew  more  miserable  and  squalid 
with  every  new  stage,  until  she  reached  the 
dreadful  climax  when,  still  a  child  herself,  she 
brought  a  little  girl  into  the  world  to  share  her 
hunger.  She  had  the  courage  to  laugh  when 
she  told  me  of  her  wandering,  half-starved, 
back  to  la  bonne  mere,  who  took  her  in  when 
her  time  came,  and  kept  the  baby.  She  could 
laugh,  too,  when  she  recalled  the  wrath  of  M. 
le  Directeur  at  the  Institution,  who  sent  for  her, 
and  scolded  her,  giving  her  a  few  sharp  raps 
with  his  cane. 

If  to  Clementine  her  tragedy  was  a  laughing 
matter,  it  was  not  for  me  to  weep  over  it.  But 
I  was  glad  when  she  got  through  with  this 

173 


Our  House 

period  and  came  to  the  next,  which  had  in  it 
more  of  pure  comedy  than  enlivened  most  of 
her  confidences.  For  once  she  was  of  age,  and 
her  debt  to  the  Institution  settled  in  full,  she 
was  free  not  only  to  work  for  herself,  but  to 
claim  a  percentage  of  the  money  she  had  been 
making  during  the  long  years  of  apprentice- 
ship; and  this  percentage  amounting  to  five 
hundred  francs,  and  Clementine  never  having 
seen  so  much  money  before,  her  imagination 
was  stirred  by  the  vastness  of  her  wealth,  and 
she  insisted  on  being  paid  in  five-franc  pieces. 
She  had  to  get  a  basket  to  hold  them  all,  and 
with  it  on  her  arm  she  started  off  in  search 
of  adventure.  This,  I  think,  was  the  supreme 
moment  in  her  life. 

Her  adventures  began  in  the  third-class  car- 
riage of  a  train  for  Boulogne,  which  might 
seem  a  mild  beginning  to  most  people,  but 
was  full  of  excitement  for  Clementine.  She 
dipped  her  hands  into  the  silver,  and  jingled 
it,  and  displayed  it  to  everybody,  with  the  van- 
ity of  a  child  showing  off  its  new  frock.  The 
only  wonder  was  that  any  of  the  five-franc 
pieces  were  still  in  the  basket  when  she  got  to 

174 


Clementine 

Boulogne.  There  they  drew  to  her  a  group  of 
young  men  and  women  who  were  bound  for 
England  to  make  their  fortunes,  and  who  per- 
suaded her  to  join  them.  Her  head  was  not 
completely  turned  by  her  wealth,  for  she  crossed 
with  them  on  the  bateau  aux  la-pins,  which  she 
explained  as  the  cheapest  boat  upon  which 
anything  but  beasts  and  vegetables 'could  find 
passage.  At  Folkestone,  where  they  landed,  she 
had  no  difficulty  in  getting  a  place  as  scullery 
maid.  But  washing  up  was  as  dull  in  England 
as  in  France,  a  poor  resource  for  anybody 
with  a  basketful  of  five -franc  pieces.  One 
of  the  young  men  who  had  crossed  with  her 
agreed  that  it  was  a  waste  of  time  to  work 
when  there  was  money  to  spend,  and  they 
decided  for  a  life  of  leisure  together.  The 
question  of  marriage  apparently  did  not  en- 
ter into  the  arrangement.  They  were  con- 
tent to  remain  des  unis,  in  M.  Rod's  phrase, 
and  their  union  was  celebrated  by  a  few  weeks 
of  riotous  living.  The  chicken  their  own 
Henry  IV  wished  for  all  his  subjects  filled 
the  daily  pot,  beer  flowed  like  water,  they 
could  have  paid  for  cake  had  bread  failed;  for 

175 


Our  House 

the  first  time  in  her  life  Clementine  forgot 
what  it  was  to  be  hungry. 

It  was  delightful  while  it  lasted,  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  she  ever  regretted  having  had  her 
fling  when  the  chance  came.  But  the  basket 
grew  lighter  and  lighter,  and  all  too  soon  barely 
enough  five-franc  pieces  were  left  in  it  to  carry 
them  up  to  London.  There,  naturally,  they 
found  their  way  to  the  Quartier.  The  man 
picked  up  an  odd  job  or  two,  Clementine 
scrubbed,  washed,  waited,  did  any  and  every- 
thing by  which  a  few  pence  could  be  earned. 
The  pot  was  now  empty,  beer  ceased  to  flow, 
bread  sometimes  was  beyond  their  means,  and 
she  was  hungrier  than  ever.  In  the  course  of 
the  year  her  little  Ernest  was  added  to  the 
family,  and  there  was  no  bonne  mere  in  London 
to  relieve  her  of  the  new  burden.  For  a  while 
Clementine  could  not  work;  when  she  could, 
there  was  no  work  to  be  had.  Nor  could  the 
man  get  any  more  jobs,  though  I  fancy  his  hunt 
for  them  was  not  too  strenuous.  Life  became 
a  stern,  bread-hunting  sort  of  business,  and  I 
think  at  moments  Clementine  almost  wished 
herself  back  in  the  garret  with  the  rats,  or  in 

176 


Clementine 

the  garden  where  dishes  of  poisoned  meat  were 
sometimes  to  be  stolen.  The  landlord  threat- 
ened, starvation  stared  them  in  the  face.  Hun- 
ger is  ever  the  incentive  to  enterprise,  and 
Ernest's  father  turned  Clementine  on  the 
streets. 

I  must  do  her  the  justice  to  say  that,  of  all 
her  adventures,  this  was  the  one  least  to  her 
liking.  That  she  had  fallen  so  low  did  not 
shock  her;  she  looked  upon  it  as  part  of  the 
inevitable  scheme  of  things:  but  left  to  her- 
self, she  would  have  preferred  another  mode  of 
earning  her  living.  After  I  had  been  told  of 
this  period  of  horrors,  I  could  never  hear  Cle- 
mentine's high,  shrill  treble  and  giggle  without 
a  shudder,  for  they  were  then  part  of  her  stock- 
in-trade,  and  she  went  on  the  streets  in  short 
skirts  with  her  hair  down  her  back.  For 
months  she  wallowed  in  the  gutter,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  lowest  and  the  most  degraded, 
insulted,  robbed,  despised,  and  if  she  attempted 
to  rebel,  bullied  back  to  her  shameful  trade  by 
a  man  who  had  no  thought  save  for  the  few 
pitiful  pence  she  could  bring  to  him  out  of  it. 
The  only  part  of  the  affair  that  pleased  her 

177 


Our  House 

was  the  ending —  in  prison  after  a  disgraceful 
street  brawl.  She  was  really  at  heart  an  adven- 
turess, and  the  opportunity  to  see  for  the  first 
time  the  inside  of  the  panier  a  salade,  as  she 
called  the  prison  van,  was  welcomed  by  her  in 
the  light  of  a  new  and  exciting  adventure. 
Then,  in  prison  itself,  the  dress  with  the  arrows 
could  be  adjusted  becomingly,  warders  and 
fellow  prisoners  could  be  made  to  laugh  by  her 
antics,  and  if  she  could  have  wished  for  more 
to  eat,  it  was  a  great  thing  not  to  have  to  find 
the  means  to  pay  for  what  she  got. 

She  was  hardly  out  of  prison  when  Ernest's 
father  chanced  upon  a  woman  who  could  pro- 
vide for  him  more  liberally,  and  Clementine 
was  again  a  free  agent.  The  streets  knew  her 
no  more,  though  for  an  interval  the  workhouse 
did.  This  was  the  crisis  when,  with  the  shrewd- 
ness acquired  in  the  London  slums,  she  learned 
something  of  the  English  law  to  her  own  ad- 
vantage, and  through  the  courts  compelled  the 
father  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  his  son. 
The  weekly  three  shillings  and  sixpence  paid 
for  a  room.  For  food  she  had  to  work.  With 
prison  behind  her,  she  was  afraid  to  ask  for  a 

178 


Clementine 

place  in  respectable  houses,  and  I  should  not 
care  to  record  the  sinks  of  iniquity  and  squalid 
dens  where  her  shrill  treble  and  little  girl's 
giggle  were  heard.  Ernest  was  dumped  down 
of  a  morning  upon  any  friendly  neighbour  who 
would  keep  an  eye  on  him,  until,  somehow  or 
other,  la  vieille  grandmere  appeared  upon  the 
scene  and  Clementine  once  more  had  two  to 
feed  and  the  daily  problem  of  her  own  hunger 
to  face. 

Her  responsibilities  never  drove  her  to  work 
harder  than  was  absolutely  necessary.  "  We 
must  all  toil  or  steal,"  Carlyle  says.  But 
Clementine  knew  better.  She  could  have  sug- 
gested a  third  alternative,  for  she  had  reduced 
begging  to  a  fine  art.  Her  scent  was  as  keen 
for  charitable  associations  as  a  pig's  for  truf- 
fles, and  she  could  tell  to  a  minute  the  appointed 
time  of  their  alms-giving,  and  to  a  penny  the 
value  of  their  alms.  She  would,  no  matter  when, 
drop  regular  work  at  the  risk  of  losing  it,  to 
rush  off  after  a  possible  charity.  There  was  a 
Societe  —  I  never  knew  it  by  any  other  name 
—  that,  while  she  was  with  me,  drew  her  from 
my  kitchen  floor  or  my  luncheon  dishes  as 

179 


Our  House 

surely  as  Thursday  came  round,  and  the  clock 
struck  one.  Why  it  existed  she  never  made 
quite  clear  to  me,  —  I  doubt  if  she  had  an  idea 
why,  herself.  It  was  enough  for  her  that  the 
poor  French  in  London  were  under  its  special 
charge,  and  that,  when  luck  was  with  her,  she 
might  come  away  with  a  loaf  of  bread,  or  an 
order  for  coals,  or,  if  she  played  the  beggar 
well,  as  much  as  a  shilling. 

She  kept  up  a  brisk  correspondence  with 
" Madame  la  Baronne  de  Rothschild"  whose 
sole  mission  in  life  she  apparently  believed  was 
to  see  her  out  of  her  difficulties.  La  Baronne, 
on  one  occasion,  gave  her  a  sovereign,  Heaven 
knows  why,  unless  as  a  desperate  measure  to 
close  the  correspondence;  but  a  good  part  of  it 
went  in  postage  for  letters  representing  why  the 
bestowal  of  sovereigns  upon  Clementine  should 
become  habitual.  Stray  agents,  presumably 
from  la  Baronne,  would  pay  me  mysterious 
visits,  to  ask  if  Clementine  were  a  deserving 
object  of  benevolence,  and  I  was  exposed  to 
repeated  cross-examination  in  her  regard.  She 
made  a  point  of  learning  the  hours  when  the 
chefs  left  the  kitchens  of  the  big  hotels  and  res- 

180 


Clementine 

tau rants  near  the  Quartier,  and  also  of  finding 
out  who  among  them  might  be  looked  to  for 
a  few  odd  pence  for  the  sake  of  Ernest's  father, 
at  one  time  a  washer  of  dishes,  or  who,  after  a 
coup  de  vin  or  an  absinthe,  grew  generous  with 
their  money.  She  had  gauged  the  depth  of  every 
tender  heart  in  the  Quartier  and  the  possibility 
of  scraps  and  broken  meats  at  every  shop  and 
eating-place.  And  no  one  understood  better 
how  to  beg,  how  to  turn  on  the  limelight  and 
bring  out  in  melodramatic  relief  the  enormity  of 
her  need  and  destitution.  The  lisping  treble, 
the  giggle,  the  tattered  clothes,  la  vieille  grand- 
mere ,  the  desertion  of  the  little  Ernest's  father, 
the  little  Ernest  himself,  were  so  many  valu- 
able assets.  Indeed,  she  appreciated  the  value 
of  the  little  Ernest  so  well  that  once  she  would 
have  had  me  multiply  him  by  twelve  when  she 
asked  me  to  vouch  for  her  poverty  before  some 
new  society  disposed  to  be  friendly.  If  luck 
went  against  her,  and  nothing  came  of  her  beg- 
ging, she  was  not  discouraged.  Begging  was 
a  game  of  chance  with  her,  —  her  Monte  Carlo 
or  Little  Horses,  —  and  she  never  murmured 
over  her  failures,  but  with  her  faculty  for  mak- 

181 


Our  House 

ing  the  best  of  all  things,  she  got  amusement 
out  of  them  as  well  as  out  of  her  successes. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  I  cannot  deny  that 
Clementine's  "character"  was  not  exactly  the 
sort  most  people  expect  when  they  engage  a  ser- 
vant. But  I  would  not  turn  adrift  a  mangy 
dog  or  a  lost  cat  whom  I  had  once  taken  in. 
And  she  did  her  work  very  well,  with  a  thor- 
oughness the  English  charwoman  would  have 
despised,  never  minding  what  that  work  was, 
so  long  as  she  had  plenty  to  eat  and  could  pre- 
pare by  an  elaborate  toilet  for  every  errand 
she  ran.  Her  morals  could  do  us  small  harm, 
and  for  a  while  I  was  foolish  enough  to  hope 
ours  might  do  her  some  good.  I  realize  now 
that  nothing  could  have  improved  Clementine; 
she  was  not  made  that  way;  but  at  the  time  she 
was  too  wholly  unlike  any  woman  I  had  ever 
come  in  contact  with,  for  me  to  see  that  the 
difference  lay  in  her  having  no  morals  to  help. 
She  was  not  immoral,  but  unmoral.  Right  and 
wrong  were  without  meaning  for  her.  Her 
standards,  if  she  could  be  said  to  have  any, 
were  comfort  and  discomfort.  Virtue  and  vice 
were  the  same  to  her,  so  long  as  she  was  not 

182 


Clementine 

unpleasantly  interfered  with.  This  was  the 
explanation  of  her  past,  as  of  her  frankness  in 
disclosing  it,  and  she  was  too  much  occupied 
in  avoiding  present  pain  to  bother  about  the 
future  by  cultivating  economy,  or  ambition, 
or  prudence.  An  animal  would  take  more 
thought  for  the  morrow  than  Clementine.  Of 
all  the  people  I  have  ever  come  across,  she  had 
the  most  reason  to  be  weary-laden,  but  instead 
of  "tears  in  her  eyes,"  there  was  always  a  gig- 
gle on  her  lips.  "La  colere,  c'est  la  folie"  she 
assured  me,  and  it  was  a  folly  she  avoided  with 
marked  success.  Perhaps  she  was  wise,  un- 
doubtedly she  was  the  happier  for  it. 

Unfortunately  for  me,  I  had  not  her  callous- 
ness or  philosophy,  —  I  am  not  yet  quite  sure 
which  it  was,  —  and  if  she  would  not  think  for 
herself,  I  was  the  more  disturbed  by  the  neces- 
sity of  thinking  for  her.  It  was  an  absurd  posi- 
tion. There  I  was,  positively  growing  grey  in 
my  endeavours  to  drag  her  up  out  of  the  abyss 
of  poverty  into  which  she  had  sunk,  and  there 
she  was,  cheerful  and  happy,  if  she  could  only 
continue  to  enjoy  la  bonne  cuisine  de  Madame. 
I  never  knew  her  to  make  the  slightest  at- 

183 


Our  House 

tempt  to  profit  by  what  I,  or  anyone  else, 
would  do  for  her.  I  remember,  when  Madame 
la  Baronne  sent  her  the  sovereign,  she  stayed 
at  home  a  week,  and  then  wrote  to  me  as 
her  excuse,  "J'ai  ete  rentiere  toute  la  semaine. 
Maintenantje  n'ai  plus  un  penny,  ilfaut  m'oc- 
cuper  du  travail.''9  I  had  not  taken  her  things 
out  of  pawn  before  they  were  pawned  again, 
and  the  cast-off  clothes  she  begged  from  me 
followed  as  promptly.  Her  little  Ernest,  after 
all  my  trouble,  stayed  at  the  convent  six  weeks, 
—  the  month  I  paid  for  and  two  weeks  that 
Clementine  somehow  wheedled  out  of  the  sis- 
ters, —  and  then  he  was  back  as  of  old,  picking 
up  his  education  in  the  London  streets.  I  pre- 
sented her  once  with  a  good  bed  I  had  no  more 
use  for,  and,  to  make  space  for  it,  she  went 
into  debt  and  moved  from  her  one  room  near 
Tottenham  Court  Road  to  two  rooms  and  a 
higher  rent  near  the  Lower  Marsh,  and  was 
robbed  on  the  way  by  the  man  she  hired  to 
move  her.  When  she  broke  anything,  and  she 
frequently  did,  she  was  never  perturbed:  "Ma- 
dame est  forte  pour  payer"  or  "Fargent  est 
fait  pour  rouler"  was  her  usual  answer  to  my 

184 


Clementine 

reproaches.  To  try  to  show  her  the  road  to 
economy  was  to  plunge  her  into  fresh  extrava- 
gance. 

Nor  did  I  advance  matters  by  talking  to  her 
seriously.  I  recall  one  special  effort  to  impress 
upon  her  the  great  misery  she  was  preparing 
for  herself  by  her  shiftlessness.  I  had  given  her 
a  pair  of  shoes,  though  I  had  vowed  a  hundred 
times  to  give  her  nothing  more,  and  I  used  the 
occasion  for  a  lecture.  She  seemed  eager  to 
interrupt  once  or  twice,  and  I  flattered  myself 
my  words  were  having  their  effect.  And  now 
what  had  she  to  say?  I  asked  when  my  elo- 
quence was  exhausted.  She  giggled:  "Would 
Madame  look  at  her  feet  in  Madame* s  shoes  ? 
Jamais  je  ne  me  suis  vue  si  bien  chaussee" 
and  she  was  going  straight  to  the  Quartier  "pour 
eblouir  le  monde"  she  said.  When  Augustine 
took  her  in  hand,  though  Augustine's  eloquence 
had  a  vigour  mine  could  not  boast  of,  the  re- 
sult was,  if  anything,  more  discouraging.  Cle- 
mentine, made  bold  by  custom,  would  turn  a 
hand-spring  or  dance  a  jig,  or  go  through  the 
other  accomplishments  she  had  picked  up  in 
the  slums. 

185 


Our  House 

If  I  could  discover  any  weak  spot  by  which 
I  could  reach  her,  I  used  to  think  something 
might  be  gained,  and  I  lost  much  time  in  study- 
ing how  to  work  upon  her  emotions.  But  her 
emotions  were  as  far  to  seek  as  her  morals. 
Even  family  ties,  usually  so  strong  in  France, 
had  no  hold  upon  her.  If  she  adored  her  little 
Ernest,  it  was  because  he  brought  her  in  three 
shillings  and  sixpence  a  week.  There  was  no 
adoration  for  her  little  girl  who  occasionally 
wrote  from  the  Pas-de-Calais  and  asked  her 
for  money.  I  saw  one  of  the  child's  letters  in 
which  she  implored  Clementine  to  pay  for  a 
white  veil  and  white  shoes;  she  was  going  to 
make  her  first  communion,  and  the  good 
adopted  mother  could  pay  for  no  more  than 
the  gown.  The  First  Communion  is  the  great- 
est event  in  the  French  child's  life ;  there  could 
be  no  deeper  disgrace  than  not  to  be  dressed 
for  it,  and  the  appeal  must  have  moved  every 
mother  who  read  it,  except  Clementine.  To 
her  it  was  comic,  and  she  disposed  of  it  with 
giggles:  "C'est  drole  quand  meme,  d*  avoir  une 
fille  de  cet  age"  and  funnier  that  she  could  be 
expected  to  pay  for  anything  for  anybody. 

186 


Clementine 

But  if  her  family  awoke  in  her  no  sentiment, 
her  "  home  "  did,  though  it  was  of  the  kind  that 
Lamb  would  have  classed  with  the  "no  homes." 
The  tenacity  with  which  she  clung  to  it  was  her 
nearest  approach  to  strong  feeling.  I  suppose  it 
was  because  she  had  so  long  climbed  the  stairs 
of  others  that  she  took  such  complete  satisfac- 
tion in  the  two  shabby  little  rooms  to  which 
she  gave  the  name.  I  had  a  glimpse  of  them, 
never  to  be  forgotten,  once  when  she  failed  to 
come  for  two  days,  and  I  went  to  look  her  up. 
The  street  reeked  with  the  smell  of  fried  fish 
and  onions;  it  was  filled  with  barrows  of  kip- 
pers and  haddocks  and  whelks;  it  was  lined 
with  old-clothes  shops;  it  was  crowded  with 
frowzy  women  and  horribly  dirty  children. 
And  the  halls  and  stairs  of  the  tenement  where 
she  lived  were  black  with  London  smoke  and 
greasy  with  London  dirt.  I  did  not  feel  clean 
afterwards  until  I  had  had  a  bath,  and  it  was 
never  again  as  easy  to  reconcile  myself  to  Cle- 
mentine's daily  reappearance  in  our  midst.  But 
to  her  the  rooms  were  home,  and  for  that  rea- 
son she  would  have  stayed  on  in  a  grimier  and 
more  malodorous  neighbourhood,  if  such  a 

187 


Our  House 

thing  could  be,  in  preference  to  living  in  the 
cleanest  and  freshest  London  workhouse  at 
the  rate -payers'  expense.  Her  objection  to 
going  into  service  except  as  a  charwoman  was 
that  she  would  have  to  stay  the  night.  "Je  ne 
serais  pas  chez  moi";  and  much  as  she  prized 
her  comfort,  it  was  not  worth  the  sacrifice.  On 
the  contrary,  she  was  prepared  to  sacrifice  her 
comfort,  dear  as  it  was  to  her,  that  she  might 
retain  her  home.  She  actually  went  to  the 
length  of  taking  in  as  companion  an  Italian 
workman  she  met  by  accident,  not  because  he 
offered  to  marry  her,  which  he  did  not,  but 
because,  according  to  his  representations,  he 
was  making  twenty-five  shillings  a  week  and 
would  help  to  pay  the  rent.  "Je  serais  chez 
moi,"  was  now  her  argument,  and  for  food  she 
could  continue  to  work  or  beg.  He  would  be  a 
convenience,  voila  tout.  The  Italian  stayed  a 
week.  He  lounged  in  bed  all  morning  while 
she  was  at  work,  he  smoked  all  afternoon.  At 
the  end  of  the  week  Clementine  sent  him  fly- 
ing. "Je  suis  bete  et  je  mourrais  bete"  was 
her  explanation  to  me;  but  she  was  not  bete  to 
the  point  of  adding  an  idle  fourth  to  her  bur- 

188 


Clementine 

den,  and,  as  a  result,  being  turned  out  of  the 
home  she  had  taken  him  in  to  preserve. 

Clementine  had  been  with  us  more  than  two 
years  when  the  incident  of  the  Italian  oc- 
curred, and  by  this  time  I  had  become  so  accus- 
tomed to  her  and  to  her  adventures  that  I  was 
not  as  shocked  as  perhaps  I  should  have  been. 
It  was  not  a  way  out  of  difficulties  I  could  ap- 
prove, but  Clementine  was  not  to  be  judged  by 
my  standards,  and  I  saw  no  reason  to  express 
my  disapproval  by  getting  rid  of  her  just  when 
she  most  needed  to  stay.  In  her  continually 
increasing  need  to  stay,  I  endured  so  much 
besides  that,  at  the  end  of  her  third  year  in  our 
chambers,  I  was  convinced  that  she  would  go 
on  doing;  my  rough  work  as  long  as  I  had 
rough  work  to  be  done.  More  than  once  I  came 
to  the  end  of  my  patience  and  dismissed 
her.  But  it  was  no  use.  In  the  course  of  a  cou- 
ple of  weeks,  or  at  the  most  three,  she  was 
back  scrubbing  my  floors  and  polishing  my 
brasses. 

The  first  time  she  lost  her  place  with  me,  I 
sympathized  to  such  an  extent  that  I  was  at 
some  pains  to  arrange  a  scheme  to  send  her  to 

189 


Our  House 

France.  But  Clementine,  clinging  to  the  plea- 
sures of  life  in  the  Lower  Marsh,  agreed  to 
everything  I  proposed,  and  was  careful  to  put 
every  hindrance  in  the  way  of  carrying  out  my 
plans.  Twice  I  went  to  the  length  of  engaging 
another  woman,  but  either  the  other  woman 
did  not  suit  or  else  she  did  not  stay,  and  I  had 
to  ask  Clementine  to  return.  On  her  side,  she 
made  various  efforts  to  leave  me,  bored,  I 
fancy,  by  the  monotony  of  regular  work,  but 
they  were  as  unsuccessful  as  mine  to  turn  her 
off.  After  one  disappearance  of  three  weeks, 
she  owned  up  frankly  to  having  been  again 
chez  les  femmes  whose  pay  was  better;  after  a 
second,  she  said  she  had  been  ill  in  the  work- 
house which  I  doubted;  after  all,  she  was  as 
frank  in  admitting  that  nowhere  else  did  she 
enjoy  la  bonne  cuisine  de  Madame,  and  that 
this  was  the  attraction  to  which  I  was  indebted 
for  her  fidelity. 

It  may  have  been  kindness,  it  may  have 
been  weakness,  it  may  have  been  simply  neces- 
sity, that  made  me  so  lenient  on  these  occa- 
sions ;  I  do  not  attempt  to  decide.  But  I  cannot 
blame  Clementine  for  thinking  it  was  because 

190 


Clementine 

she  was  indispensable.  I  noticed  that  gradu- 
ally in  small  ways  she  began  to  take  advantage 
of  our  good-nature.  For  one  thing  there  was 
now  no  limit  to  her  conversation.  I  did  not 
spend  my  time  in  the  kitchen  and  could  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  it,  but  I  sometimes  wondered  if 
Augustine  would  not  be  the  next  to  disappear. 
She  would  also  often  relieve  the  tedium  of  her 
several  tasks  by  turning  the  handsprings  in 
which  she  was  so  accomplished,  or  dancing  the 
jig  popular  in  the  Lower  Marsh,  or  by  other 
performances  equally  reprehensible  in  the 
kitchen  of  une  maison  bourgeoise,  as  she  was 
pleased  to  describe  our  chambers.  She  never 
lost  a  chance  of  rushing  to  the  door  if  trades- 
people rang,  or  talking  with  the  British  Work- 
men we  were  obliged,  for  our  sins,  to  employ. 
Their  bewilderment,  stolid  Britons  as  they 
were,  would  have  been  funny,  had  not  her 
manner  of  exciting  it  been  so  discreditable. 
She  was  even  caught — I  was  spared  the  know- 
ledge until  much  later  —  turning  her  hand- 
springs for  a  select  company  of  plasterers  and 
painters.  Then  I  could  see  that  she  accepted 
anything  we  might  bestow  upon  her  as  her  due, 

191 


Our  House 

and  was  becoming  critical  of  the  value  and 
quality  of  the  gift.  I  can  never  forget  on  one 
occasion  when  J.  was  going  away,  and  he  gave 
her  a  few  shillings,  the  expression  with  which 
she  looked  first  at  the  money  and  then  at  him 
as  though  insulted  by  the  paltriness  of  the 
amount.  More  unbearable  was  the  unfair  use 
she  made  of  her  little  Ernest. 

La  vieille  grandmere,  who  had  wandered  by 
chance  into  her  life,  wandered  out  of  it  as  casu- 
ally, or  so  Clementine  said  as  an  argument  to 
induce  me  to  receive  that  odious  little  boy  into 
my  kitchen  during  her  hours  of  work;  she  had 
nobody  to  take  care  of  him,  she  could  not  leave 
him  alone.  Here,  happily  for  myself,  I  had  the 
strength  to  draw  the  line.  But  when  this  argu- 
ment failed,  she  found  another  far  more  har- 
rowing. She  took  the  opportunity  of  my  stum- 
bling across  her  in  our  little  hall  one  day  at  noon 
to  tell  me  that,  as  I  would  not  let  her  bring 
him  with  her,  she  left  him  every  day,  carefully 
locked  up  out  of  harm's  way,  alone  in  her 
rooms.  A  child  of  seven,  as  he  was  then, 
locked  up  to  get  into  any  mischief  he  could 
invent,  and,  moreover,  a  child  with  a  talent 

192 


Clementine 

for  mischief!  that  was  too  much,  and  I  sent  her 
flying  home  without  giving  her  time  to  eat 
her  lunch  or  linger  before  the  glass,  and  I 
was  haunted  for  the  rest  of  the  day  with  the 
thought  of  all  the  terrible  things  that  might 
have  happened  to  him.  Naturally  nothing  did 
happen,  nothing  ever  does  happen  to  children 
like  the  little  Ernest,  and  Clementine,  dis- 
mayed by  the  loss  of  her  lunch  and  the  inter- 
ference with  her  toilet,  never  ventured  upon 
this  argument  a  second  time.  But  she  found 
another  almost  as  bad,  for  she  informed  me 
that,  thanks  to  my  interference,  she  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  him  again  to  run  the  streets  as 
he  would,  and  she  hinted  only  too  plainly  that 
for  whatever  evil  might  befall  him,  I  was  re- 
sponsible. Our  relations  were  at  this  pleasant 
stage,  and  her  little  Ernest  was  fast  developing 
into  a  monstrous  Frankenstein  wholly  of  my 
own  raising,  when  one  day  she  arrived  with  a 
new  air  of  importance  and  announced  her  ap- 
proaching marriage. 

I  was  enchanted.  I  had  not  permitted  my- 
self to  feel  the  full  weight  of  the  burden  Cle- 
mentine was  heaping  upon  my  shoulders  until 

193 


Our  House 

now  it  seemed  on  the  point  of  slipping  from 
them,  and  never  were  congratulations  more 
sincere  than  mine.  As  she  spared  me  none  of 
her  confidence,  every  detail  of  her  courtship 
and  her  prospects  was  soon  at  my  disposal.  In 
the  course  of  her  regular  round  of  the  kitchen 
doors  of  the  Quartier  she  had  picked  up  an 
Englishman  who  washed  dishes  in  a  restaurant. 
He  was  not  much  over  twenty,  he  earned  no 
less  than  eighteen  shillings  a  week,  and  he  had 
asked  her  to  marry  him.  She  accepted  him,  as 
she  had  accepted  the  Italian,  because  he  would 
pay  the  rent;  the  only  difference  was  that  her 
new  admirer  proposed  the  form  of  companion- 
ship which  is  not  lightly  broken.  "  Cette  fois 
je  crois  que  cela  sera  vrai  —  que  I* affaire  ne 
tombera  pas  dans  Peau"  she  said,  remember- 
ing the  deep  waters  which,  in  her  recent  affair, 
had  gone  over  her  head.  "Mon  petit  Anglais" 
— her  name  for  him  —  figured  in  her  account 
as  a  model  of  propriety.  He  had  a  strict  regard 
for  morals.  He  objected  to  her  working  chez 
les  femmes,  and  expressed  his  desire  that  she 
should  remain  in  our  service,  despite  the  loss 
to  their  income.  He  condoned  her  previous  in- 

194 


Clementine 

discretions,  and  was  prepared  to  play  a  father's 
part  to  her  little  Ernest. 

Altogether  the  situation  was  fast  growing 
idyllic,  and  with  Clementine  in  her  new  role  of 
fiancee,  we  thought  that  peace  for  us  all  was  in 
sight.  She  set  about  her  preparations  at  once, 
and  did  not  hesitate  to  let  me  know  that  an 
agreeable  wedding  present  would  be  house 
linen,  however  old  and  ragged,  and  a  new  hat 
for  the  wedding.  I  had  looked  for  some  pre- 
liminary begging  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  I 
was  already  going  through  my  linen  closet  to 
see  what  I  could  spare,  when  I  caught  Clemen- 
tine collecting  wedding  presents  from  me  fop 
which  I  had  not  been  asked. 

Until  then  I  believed  that,  whatever  crimes 
and  vices  might  be  laid  at  her  door,  dishonesty 
was  not  to  be  counted  among  them.  I  even 
boasted  of  her  honesty  as  an  excuse  for  my 
keeping  her,  nuisance  as  she  was.  I  think  I 
should  have  doubted  her  guilt  if  the  report  of 
it  only  had  reached  me.  But  I  could  not  doubt 
the  testimony  of  my  own  eyes  when  there  was 
discovered,  carefully  packed  in  the  capacious 
bag  she  always  carried,  one  of  my  best  napkins, 

195 


Our  House 

a  brand-new  tea-cloth,  and  a  few  kitchen 
knives  and  forks  that  could  not  have  strayed 
there  of  themselves.  I  could  see  in  the  articles 
selected  her  tender  concern  for  the  comfort  of 
her  petit  Anglais  and  her  practical  wish  to  pre- 
pare her  establishment  for  his  coming,  and 
probably  it  showed  her  consideration  for  me 
that  she  had  been  content  with  such  simple 
preparations.  But  the  value  of  the  things 
themselves  and  her  object  in  appropriating 
them  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  main  fact 
that,  after  all  we  had  done  and  endured,  she 
was  stealing,  from  us.  "We  should  wipe  two 
words  from  our  vocabulary :  gratitude  and 
charity,"  Stevenson  once  wrote.  Clementine 
wiped  out  the  one  so  successfully  that  she 
left  me  with  no  use  for  the  other.  I  told  her 
she  must  go,  and  this  time  I  was  in  good  ear- 
nest. 

To  Clementine,  however,  nothing  could  have 
seemed  less  possible.  She  could  not  under- 
stand that  a  petty  theft  would  make  her  less 
indispensable,  or  that  I  would  strain  at  a  gnat 
after  swallowing  so  many  camels.  Within  a 
week  she  was  knocking  at  our  door  and  express- 

196 


Clementine 

ing  her  willingness  to  resume  her  place  in  our 
chambers.  She  was  not  discouraged  by  the 
refusal  to  admit  her,  but  a  few  days  later,  this 
time  by  letter,  she  again  assured  me  that  she 
waited  to  be  recalled,  and  she  referred  to  the 
desire  of  her  petit  Anglais  in  the  matter.  She 
affected  penitence,  admitting  that  she  had 
committed  une  "Betisse" — the  spelling  is  hers 
—  and  adding :  "avoir  dgit  ainsi  avec  des 
maitres  aussi  bons,  ce  n'est  pas  pardonable.  Je 
vous  assure  que  si  un  jour  je  devien  riche,  ou 
peut  etre  plus  pauvre,  que  dans  ma  richesse, 
comme  dans  ma  plus  grande  misere,jene  pour- 
rais  jamais  oublier  les  bons  maitres  Monsieur 
et  Madame,  car  jamais  dans  ma  vie  d'orphe- 
line,  je  n'aie  jamais  rencontre  d 'aussi  bons 
maitres"  She  also  reminded  me  that  she  lived 
in  the  hope  that  Madame  would  not  forget  the 
promised  present  of  linen  and  a  hat.  I  made 
no  answer.  Another  letter  followed,  penitence 
now  exchanged  for  reproaches.  She  expostu- 
lated with  me  for  taking  the  bread  out  of  the 
mouth  of  her  petit  innocent  —  Ernest  —  the 
little  innocent  whom  the  slums  had  nothing 
more  to  teach.  This  second  letter  met  the  same 

197 


Our  House 

fate  as  the  first,  but  her  resources  were  not 
exhausted.  In  a  third  she  tried  the  dignity  of 
sorrow:  "Ma  j "ante  m'a  rendu  Fame  si  triste," 
and,  as  this  had  no  effect,  she  used  in  a  fourth 
the  one  genuine  argument  of  them  all,  her  hun- 
ger: "Enfin  il  faut  que  je  tdche  d'oublier,  mais 
en  attendant  je  nCen  mordrais  pent  etre  les 
poings  plus  d'unefois"  I  was  unmoved.  I 
had  spent  too  much  emotion  already  upon 
Clementine;  also  a  neat  little  French  girl  had 
replaced  her. 

She  gave  up  when  she  found  me  proof  against 
an  argument  that  had  hitherto  always  dis- 
armed me.  This  was  the  last  time  she  put  her- 
self at  my  service;  though  once  afterwards  she 
gave  me  the  pleasure  of  hearing  from  her.  Not 
many  weeks  had  passed  when  I  received  a  pic- 
torial post-card  that  almost  reconciled  me  to 
a  fashion  I  deplore.  The  picture  that  adorned 
it  was  a  photograph  of  an  ordinary  three- 
storey  London  house,  the  windows  draped  with 
lace  curtains  of  a  quality  and  design  not  com- 
mon in  the  Lower  Marsh.  But  the  extraordi- 
nary thing  about  it  was  that  in  the  open  door- 
way —  apronless,  her  arms  akimbo,  the  wave 

198 


Clementine 

of  hair  low  on  her  forehead — stood  Clemen- 
tine, giggling  in  triumph.  A  few  words  accom- 
panied this  astonishing  vision.  "Je  n'oublie- 
rais  jamais  la  bonne  maison  de  Madame"  and 
the  kind  message  was  signed  "Mrs.  Johnson." 
Whether  the  eighteen  shillings  of  her  petit 
Anglais  ran  to  so  imposing  a  home,  or  to  what 
she  owed  the  post-card  prominence  usually 
reserved  for  the  monuments  of  London,  she 
did  not  condescend  to  explain.  Probably  she 
only  wanted  to  show  that,  though  she  had 
achieved  this  distinction,  she  could  be  mag- 
nanimous enough  to  forget  the  past  and  think 
of  us  kindly. 

That  was  the  last  I  ever  heard  from  Cle- 
mentine, the  last  I  hope  I  ever  shall  hear.  The 
pictorial  post-card  told  me  the  one  thing  I 
cared  to  know.  She  did  not  leave  me  for  a  bed 
on  the  Embankment  by  night  and  a  round  of 
the  soup-kitchens  by  day.  If  ever  she  does  see 
life  in  this  way  and  so  completes  her  experience, 
the  responsibility  will  not  be  mine  for  having 
driven  her  to  it. 


VI 

The  Old  Housekeeper 


VI 


THE   OLD   HOUSEKEEPER 

No  housekeeper  could  have  been  more  in 
place  than  the  little  old  white-haired  woman 
who  answered  our  ring  the  day  we  came  to 
engage  our  windows,  and,  incidentally,  the 
chambers  behind  them.  She  was  venerable  in 
appearance  and  scrupulously  neat  in  her  dress, 
and  her  manner  had  just  the  right  touch  of 
dignity  and  deference,  until  we  explained  our 
errand.  Then  she  flew  into  a  rage  and  told  us 
in  a  tone  that  challenged  us  to  dispute  it, 
"You  know,  no  coal  is  to  be  carried  upstairs 
after  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

Coal  was  as  yet  so  remote  that  we  would 
have  agreed  to  anything  in  our  impatience  to 
look  out  of  the  windows,  and,  reassured  by  us, 
she  became  the  obsequious  housekeeper  again, 
getting  the  keys,  toiling  with  us  up  the  three 
flights  of  stairs,  unlocking  the  double  door,  — 
for,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  an  "oak"  to 

203 


Our  House 

"sport," — ushering  us  into  the  chambers  with 
the  Adam  mantelpieces  and  decorations  and 
the  windows  that  brought  us  there,  dropping 
the  correct  "Sir"  and  "Madam"  into  her 
talk,  accepting  without  a  tremor  the  shilling 
we  were  ashamed  to  offer,  and  realizing  so 
entirely  our  idea  of  what  a  housekeeper  in  Lon- 
don chambers  ought  to  be,  that  her  outbreak 
over  the  coal  we  had  not  ordered,  and  might 
never  order,  was  the  more  perplexing. 

I  understood  it  before  we  were  settled  in 
our  chambers,  for  they  were  not  really  ours 
until  after  a  long  delay  over  the  legal  formali- 
ties with  which  the  English  love  to  entangle 
their  simplest  transactions  at  somebody  else's 
expense,  and  a  longer  one  in  proving  our  per- 
sonal and  financial  qualifications,  the  landlord 
being  disturbed  by  a  suspicion  that,  like  the 
Housekeeper's  daughter,  we  were  in  the  pro- 
fession and  spent  most  of  our  time  "resting,"  a 
suspicion  confirmed  by  the  escape  of  the  last 
tenant,  also  in  the  profession,  with  a  year's 
rent  still  to  pay.  And  then  came  much  the 
longest  delay  of  all  over  the  British  Workman, 
who,  once  he  got  in,  threatened  never  to  get  out. 

204 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

In  the  mean  while  we  saw  the  Housekeeper 
almost  every  day. 

We  did  not  have  to  see  her  often  to  discover 
that  she  was  born  a  housekeeper,  that  she  had 
but  one  thought  in  life,  and  that  this  was  the 
house  under  her  charge.  I  am  sure  she  be- 
lieved that  she  came  into  the  world  to  take 
care  of  it,  unless  indeed  it  was  built  to  be  taken 
care  of  by  her.  She  belonged  to  a  generation 
in  England  who  had  not  yet  been  taught  the 
folly  of  interest  in  their  work,  and  she  was  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  feel  the  importance  of  the 
post  she  filled.  She  would  have  lost  her  self- 
respect  had  she  failed  in  the  slightest  detail  of 
her  duty  to  the  house.  From  the  first,  the  spot- 
less marvel  she  made  of  it  divided  our  admira- 
tion with  our  windows.  The  hall  and  front 
steps  were  immaculate,  the  white  stone  stairs 
,  shone,  there  was  not  a  speck  of  dust  anywhere, 
and  I  appreciated  the  work  this  meant  in  an 
old  London  building,  where  the  dirt  not  only 
filters  through  doors  and  windows,  but  oozes 
out  of  the  walls  and  comes  up  through  the 
floors.  She  did  not  pretend  to  hide  her  despair 
when  our  painters  and  paperers  tramped  and 

205 


Our  House 

blundered  in  and  out;  she  fretted  herself  ill 
when  our  furniture  was  brought  up  the  three 
flights  of  her  shining  stairs.  Painters  and 
paperers  and  the  bringing  up  of  furniture  were 
rare  incidents  in  the  life  of  a  tenant  and  had 
to  be  endured.  But  coal,  with  its  trail  of  dust, 
was  an  endless  necessity,  and  at  least  could  be 
regulated.  This  was  why,  after  her  daily  clean- 
ing was  done,  she  refused  to  let  it  pass. 

Once  we  were  established,  we  saw  her  less 
often.  Her  daily  masterpiece  was  finished  in 
the  morning  before  we  were  up,  and  at  all 
times  she  effaced  herself  with  the  respect  she 
owed  to  tenants  of  a  house  in  which  she  was 
the  servant.  If  we  did  meet  her  she  acknow- 
ledged our  greeting  with  ostentatious  humility, 
for  she  clung  with  as  little  shame  to  servility 
as  to  cleanliness;  servility  was  also  a  part  of 
the  business  of  a  housekeeper,  just  as  elegance 
was  the  mark  of  the  profession  which  her 
daughter  graced,  and  the  shame  would  have 
been  not  to  be  as  servile  as  the  position  de- 
manded. 

This  daughter  was  in  every  way  an  elegant 
person,  dressing  with  a  fidelity  to  fashion  which 

206 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

I  could  not  hope  to  emulate,  and  with  the  help 
of  a  fashionable  dressmaker  whom  I  could  not 
afford  to  pay.  She  was  "  resting  "  from  the  time 
we  came  into  the  house  until  her  mother  left  it, 
but  if  in  the  profession  it  is  a  misfortune  to  be 
out  of  work,  it  is  a  crime  to  look  it,  and  her 
appearance  and  manner  gave  no  hint  of  unem- 
ployment. In  an  emergency  she  would  bring 
us  up  a  message  or  a  letter,  but  her  civility  had 
none  of  her  mother's  obsequiousness;  it  was 
a  condescension,  and  she  made  us  feel  the 
honor  she  conferred  upon  the  house  by  living 
in  it.  She  was  engaged  to  be  married  to  a 
stage  manager  who  for  the  moment  seemed  to 
be  without  a  stage  to  manage,  for  he  spent  his 
evenings  with  her  in  the  Housekeeper's  little 
sitting-room,  where  photographs  of  actors  and 
actresses,  each  with  its  sprawling  autograph, 
covered  the  walls,  crowded  the  mantelpiece, 
and  littered  the  table.  I  think  the  House- 
keeper could  have  asked  for  nothing  better 
than  that  they  should  both  continue  to  "  rest," 
not  so  much  because  it  gave  her  the  pleasure 
of  their  society  as  because  it  was  a  protection 
to  the  house  to  have  a  man  about  after  dark 

207 


Our  House 

until  the  street  door  was  closed  at  eleven. 
Had  it  come  to  a  question  between  the  house 
and  her  daughter,  the  daughter  would  not 
have  had  a  chance. 

The  Housekeeper,  for  all  her  deference  to 
the  tenants,  was  a  despot,  and  none  of  us 
dared  to  rebel  against  her  rule  and  disturb  the 
order  she  maintained.  To  anybody  coming  in 
from  the  not  too  respectable  little  street  the 
respectability  of  the  house  was  overwhelming, 
and  I  often  noticed  that  strangers,  on  entering, 
lowered  their  voices  and  stepped  more  softly. 
The  hush  of  repose  hung  heavy  on  the  public 
hall  and  stairs,  whatever  might  be  going  on 
behind  the  two  doors  that  faced  each  other 
on  every  landing.  We  all  emulated  her  in 
the  quiet  and  decorum  of  our  movements. 
We  allowed  ourselves  so  seldom  to  be  seen 
that  after  three  months  I  still  knew  little  of 
the  others  except  their  names  on  their  doors, 
the  professions  of  those  who  had  offices  and 
hung  up  their  signs,  and  the  frequency  with 
which  the  Church  League  on  the  First  Floor 
drank  afternoon  tea.  On  certain  days,  when 
I  went  out  towards  five  o'clock,  I  had  to  push 
208 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

my  way  through  a  procession  of  bishops  in 
aprons  and  gaiters,  deans  and  ordinary  par- 
sons who  were  legion,  dowagers  and  duchesses 
who  were  as  sands  on  the  stairs.  I  may  be 
wrong,  but  I  fancy  that  the  Housekeeper 
would  have  found  a  way  to  rout  this  weekly 
invasion  if,  in  the  aprons  and  gaiters,  she  had 
not  seen  symbols  of  the  respectability  which 
was  her  pride. 

What  I  did  not  find  out  about  the  tenants 
for  myself,  there  was  no  learning  from  her. 
She  disdained  the  gossip  which  was  the  breath 
of  life  to  the  other  housekeepers  in  the  street, 
where,  in  the  early  mornings  when  the  fronts 
were  being  done,  or  in  the  cool  of  summer 
evenings  when  the  day's  work  was  over,  I 
would  see  them  chattering  at  their  doors. 
She  never  joined  in  the  talk,  holding  herself 
aloof,  as  if  her  house  were  on  a  loftier  plane 
than  theirs,  and  as  if  the  number  of  her  years 
in  it  raised  her  to  a  higher  caste.  Exactly  how 
many  these  years  had  been  she  never  pre- 
sumed to  say,  but  she  looked  as  ancient  as  the 
house,  and  had  she  told  me  she  remembered 
Bacon  and  Pepys,  who  were  tenants  each  in 

209 


Our  House 

his  own  day,  or  Peter  the  Great,  who  lived 
across  the  street,  I  should  have  believed  her. 
She  did  not,  however,  claim  to  go  further  back 
than  Etty,  the  Royal  Academician,  who  spent 
over  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  our  chambers, 
and  one  of  whose  sitters  she  once  brought  up 
to  see  us,  —  a  melancholy  old  man  who  could 
only  shake  his  head,  first  over  the  changes 
in  the  house  since  Etty  painted  those  wonder- 
ful Victorian  nudes,  so  demure  that  "Bob" 
Stevenson  insisted  that  Etty's  maiden  aunts 
must  have  sat  for  them,  and  then  over  the 
changes  in  the  River,  which  also,  it  seemed, 
had  seen  better  days.  Really,  he  was  so  dis- 
mal a  survivor  of  an  older  generation  that  we 
were  glad  she  brought  no  more  of  his  contem- 
poraries to  see  us. 

For  so  despotic  a  character,  the  House- 
keeper had  a  surprisingly  feminine  capacity 
for  hysterics,  of  which  she  made  the  most  the 
night  of  the  fire.  I  admit  it  was  an  agitat- 
ing event  for  us  all.  The  Fire  of  London  was 
not  so  epoch-making.  Afterwards  the  tenants 
used  to  speak  of  the  days  "Before  the  Fire," 
as  we  still  talk  at  home  of  the  days  "Before 

210 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

the  War."  It  happened  in  July,  the  third 
month  of  our  tenancy.  J.  was  away,  and, 
owing  to  domestic  complications,  I  was  alone 
in  our  chambers  at  night.  I  do  not  recall  the 
period  with  pride,  for  it  proved  me  more  of 
a  coward  than  I  cared  to  acknowledge.  If  I 
came  home  late,  it  was  a  struggle  to  make  up 
my  mind  to  open  my  front  door  and  face  the 
Unknown  on  the  other  side.  Once  or  twice 
there  was  a  second  struggle  at  the  dining-room 
door,  the  simple  search  for  biscuits  exaggerat- 
ing itself  into  a  perilous  adventure.  As  I  was 
not  yet  accustomed  to  the  noises  in  our 
chambers,  fear  followed  me  to  my  bedroom, 
and  when  the  trains  on  the  near  railroad 
bridge  awoke  me,  I  lay  trembling,  certain  they 
were  burglars  or  ghosts,  forgetting  that  visitors 
of  that  kind  are  usually  shyer  in  announcing 
themselves.  Then  I  began  to  be  ashamed,  and 
there  was  a  night  when,  though  the  noises 
sounded  strangely  like  voices  immediately  out- 
side my  window,  I  managed  to  turn  over  and 
try  to  sleep  again.  This  time  the  danger  was 
real,  and,  the  next  thing  I  knew,  somebody 
was  ringing  the  front  doorbell  and  knocking 

211 


Our  House 

without  stopping,  and  before  I  had  time 
to  be  afraid  I  was  out  of  bed  and  at  the 
door.  It  was  the  young  man  from  across  the 
hall,  who  had  come  to  give  me  the  cheerful 
intelligence  that  his  chambers  were  on  fire, 
and  to  advise  me  to  dress  as  fast  as  I  knew 
how  and  get  downstairs  before  the  firemen 
and  the  hose  arrived,  or  I  might  not  get  down 
at  all. 

I  flung  myself  into  my  clothes,  although,  as 
I  am  pleased  to  recall,  I  had  the  sense  to  select 
my  most  useful  gown,  in  case  but  one  was 
left  me  in  the  morning,  and  the  curiosity  to 
step  for  a  second  on  to  the  leads  where  the 
flames  were  leaping  from  the  young  man's 
windows.  As  it  was  too  late  to  help  himself, 
he  was  waiting,  with  his  servant,  to  help  me. 
A  pile  of  J.'s  drawings  lay  on  a  chair  in  the 
hall,  —  I  thrust  them  into  the  young  man's 
outstretched  arms.  For  some  incomprehen- 
sible reason  J.'s  huge  schube  was  on  another 
chair,  —  I  threw  it  into  the  arms  of  the  young 
man's  servant,  who  staggered  under  its  unex- 
pected weight.  I  rushed  to  my  desk  to  secure 
the  money  I  was  unwilling  to  leave  behind, 

212 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

when  a  bull's-eye  lantern  flashed  upon  me 
and  a  policeman  ordered  me  out.  Firemen  — 
for  London  firemen  eventually  arrive  if  the 
fire  burns  long  enough  —  were  dragging  up  a 
hose  as  I  flew  downstairs,  and  the  policeman 
had  scarcely  pushed  me  into  the  House- 
keeper's room,  the  young  man  had  just  de- 
posited the  drawings  at  my  feet,  and  the  ser- 
vant the  schube,  when  the  stairs  became  a 
raging  torrent. 

I  had  not  thought  of  the  Housekeeper  till 
then ;  after  that  there  was  no  thinking  of  any- 
thing else.  My  dread  of  never  again  seeing 
our  chambers  was  nothing  to  her  sense  of 
the  outrage  to  her  house.  Niobe  weeping  for 
her  children  was  not  so  tragic  a  spectacle  as 
she  lamenting  the  ruin  of  plaster  and  paint 
that  did  not  belong  to  her.  She  was  half- 
dressed,  propped  up  against  cushions  on  a 
couch,  sniffing  the  salts  and  sipping  the  water 
administered  by  her  daughter,  who  had  taken 
the  time  to  dress  carefully  and  elegantly  for  the 
scene.  "Oh,  what  shall  I  do!  Oh,  what  shall 
I  do!"  the  Housekeeper  wailed  as  she  saw  me, 
wringing  her  hands  with  an  abandonment  that 

213 


Our  House 

would  have  made  her  daughter's  fortune  on 
the  stage. 

Her  sitting-room  had  been  appropriated  as 
a  refuge  for  the  tenants,  and  this  sudden  re- 
union was  my  introduction  to  them.  As  the 
room  was  small,  my  first  impression  was  of  a 
crowd,  though  in  actual  numbers  we  were  not 
many.  The  young  man  whose  distinction  was 
that  the  fire  originated  in  his  chambers,  and 
myself,  represented  the  Third  Floor  Front 
and  Back.  The  Architect  and  his  clerks  of  the 
Second  Floor  Front  were  at  home  in  their 
beds,  unconscious  of  the  deluge  pouring  into 
their  office;  the  Second  Floor  Back  had  gone 
away  on  a  holiday.  The  Church  League  of  the 
First  Floor  Front,  haunted  by  bishops  and 
deans,  duchesses  and  dowagers,  was  of  course 
closed,  and  we  were  deprived  of  whatever  spir- 
itual consolation  their  presence  might  have 
provided.  But  the  First  Floor  Back  filled  the 
little  room  with  her  loud  voice  and  portly 
presence.  She  had  attired  herself  for  the 
occasion  in  a  black  skirt  and  a  red  jacket, 
that,  for  all  her  efforts,  would  not  meet  over 
the  vast  expanse  of  grey  Jaeger  vest  beneath, 

214 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

and  her  thin  wisps  of  grey  hair  were  drawn 
up  under  a  green  felt  hat  of  the  pattern  I  wore 
for  bicycling.  I  looked  at  it  regretfully:  a 
hat  of  any  kind  would  have  completed  my 
costume.  I  complimented  her  on  her  fore- 
thought; but  "What  could  I  do?"  she  said, 
"they  flurried  me  so  I  could  n't  find  my  false 
front  anywhere,  and  I  had  to  cover  my  head 
with  something."  It  was  extraordinary  how 
a  common  danger  broke  down  the  barrier  of 
reserve  we  had  hitherto  so  carefully  cultivated. 
She  had  her  own  salts  which  she  shared  with 
us  all,  when  she  did  not  need  them  for  the 
Housekeeper,  whom  she  kept  calling  "Poor 
dear!"  and  who,  after  every  "Poor  dear!" 
went  off  into  a  new  attack  of  hysterics. 

The  Ground  Floor  Front,  a  thin,  spry  old 
gentleman,  hovered  about  us,  bobbing  in  and 
out  like  the  little  man  in  the  weather-house. 
He  was  in  the  insurance  business,  I  was  im- 
mediately informed,  and  it  seemed  a  comfort 
to  us  all  to  know  it,  though  I  cannot  for  the 
life  of  me  imagine  why  it  should  have  been 
to  me,  not  one  stick  or  stitch  up  there  in  our 
chambers  being  insured.  The  Ground  Floor 

215 


Our  House 

Back  was  at  his  club,  and  his  wife  and  two 
children  had  not  been  disturbed,  as  in  their 
chambers  the  risk  was  not  immediate,  and, 
anyway,  they  could  easily  walk  out  should  it 
become  so.  He  had  been  promptly  sent  for, 
and  when  a  message  came  back  that  he  was 
playing  whist  and  would  hurry  to  the  rescue 
of  his  family  as  soon  as  his  rubber  was  finished, 
the  indignation  in  the  Housekeeper's  room  was 
intense.  "Brute!"  the  Housekeeper  said,  and 
after  that,  through  the  rest  of  the  night,  she 
would  ask  every  few  minutes  if  he  had  re- 
turned, and  the  answer  in  the  negative  was 
fresh  fuel  to  her  wrath. 

She  was,  if  anything,  more  severe  with  the 
young  man  whose  chambers  were  blazing, 
and  who  confessed  he  had  gone  out  toward 
midnight  leaving  a  burning  candle  in  one  of 
his  rooms.  He  treated  the  fire  as  a  jest,  which 
she  could  not  forgive;  and  when  at  dawn,  he 
decided  that  all  his  possessions,  including 
account-books  committed  to  his  care,  were  in 
ashes,  and  that  it  was  useless  to  wait,  and 
he  wished  us  good-morning  and  good-by,  she 
hinted  darkly  that  fires  might  be  one  way 

216 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

of  disposing  of  records  it  was  convenient  to 
be  rid  of. 

Indignation  served  better  than  salts  to 
rouse  the  Housekeeper  from  her  hysterics,  and 
I  was  glad  of  the  distraction  it  gave  her  for 
another  reason :  without  it,  she  could  not  long 
have  remained  unconscious  of  an  evil  that 
I  look  back  to  as  the  deadliest  of  all  during 
that  night's  vigil.  For,  gradually  through  her 
room,  by  this  time  close  to  suffocation,  there 
crept  the  most  terrible  smell.  It  took  hold 
of  me,  choked  me,  sickened  me.  The  House- 
keeper's daughter  and  the  First  Floor  Back 
blanched  under  it,  the  Housekeeper  turned 
from  white  to  green.  I  have  often  marvelled 
since  that  they  never  referred  to  it,  but  I 
know  why  I  did  not.  For  it  was  I  who  sent 
that  smell  downstairs  when  I  threw  the  Rus- 
sian schube  into  the  arms  of  the  Third  Floor 
Front's  servant.  Odours,they  say,  are  the  best 
jogs  to  memory,  and  the  smell  of  the  schube  is 
for  me  so  inextricably  associated  with  the  fire, 
that  I  can  never  think  of  one  without  remem- 
bering the  other. 

The  schube  was  the  chief  treasure  among 
217 


Our  House 

the  fantastic  costumes  it  is  J.'s  joy  to  collect 
on  his  travels.  His  Hungarian  sheepskins, 
French  hooded  capes,  Swiss  blouses,  Spanish 
berets,  Scotch  tam-o'-shanters,  Dalmatian 
caps,  Roumanian  embroidered  shirts,  and  the 
rest,  I  can  dispose  of  by  packing  them  out  of 
sight  and  dosing  them  with  camphor.  But  no 
trunk  was  big  enough  to  hold  the  Russian 
schube,  and  its  abominable  smell,  even  when 
reinforced  by  tons  of  camphor  and  pepper, 
could  not  frighten  away  the  moths.  It  was 
picturesque,  so  much  I  admit  in  its  favor,  and 
Whistler's  lithograph  of  J.  draped  in  it  is  a 
princely  reward  for  my  trouble.  But  that 
trouble  lasted  for  eighteen  years,  during  which 
time  J.  wore  the  schube  just  twice,  —  once  to 
pose  for  the  lithograph  and  once  on  a  winter 
night  in  London,  when  its  weight  was  a  far 
more  serious  discomfort  than  the  cold.  Occa- 
sionally he  exhibited  it  to  select  audiences. 
At  all  other  times  it  hung  in  a  colossal  linen 
bag  made  especially  to  hold  it.  The  eighteenth 
summer,  when  the  bag  was  opened  for  the 
periodical  airing  and  brushing,  no  schube  was 
there;  not  a  shred  of  fur  remained,  the  cloth 

218 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

was  riddled  with  holes ;  it  had  fallen  before  its 
hereditary  foe  and  the  moths  had  devoured  it. 
For  this  had  I  toiled  over  it;  for  this  had  I 
rescued  it  on  the  night  of  the  fire  as  if  it  were 
my  crowning  jewel;  for  this  had  I  braved  the 
displeasure  of  the  Housekeeper,  from  which 
indeed  I  escaped  only  because,  at  the  critical 
moment,  the  policeman  who  had  ordered  me 
downstairs  appeared  to  say  that  the  lady  from 
the  Third  Floor  Back  could  go  up  again  if  she 
chose. 

The  stairs  were  a  waterfall  under  which  I 
ascended.  The  two  doors  of  our  chambers  were 
wide  open,  with  huge  gaps  where  panels  had 
been,  the  young  man's  servant  having  care- 
fully shut  them  after  me  in  our  flight,  thinking, 
I  suppose,  that  the  firemen  would  stand  upon 
ceremony  and  ask  for  the  key  before  venturing 
in.  A  river  was  drying  up  in  our  hall,  and  the 
strip  of  matting  down  the  centre  was  sodden. 
Empty  soda-water  bottles  rolled  on  the  floor, 
though  it  speaks  well  for  London  firemen  that 
nothing  stronger  was  touched.  Candles  were 
stuck  upside  down  in  our  hanging  Dutch 
lamp  and  all  available  candlesticks,  curtains 

219 


Our  House 

and  blinds  were  pulled  about,  chairs  were  up- 
set, the  marks  of  muddy  feet  were  everywhere. 
I  ought  to  have  been  grateful,  and  I  was,  that 
the  damage  was  so  small,  all  the  more  when  I 
went  again  on  to  the  leads  and  saw  the  black- 
ened heap  to  which  the  night  had  reduced 
the  young  man's  chambers.  But  the  place 
was  inexpressibly  cheerless  and  dilapidated  in 
the  dawning  light. 

It  was  too  late  to  go  to  bed,  too  early  to  go 
to  work.  I  was  hungry,  and  the  baker  had  not 
come,  nor  the  charwoman.  I  was  faint,  the 
smell  of  the  schube  was  strong  in  my  nostrils, 
though  the  schube  itself  was  now  safely  locked 
up  in  a  remote  cupboard.  I  wandered  dis- 
consolately from  room  to  room,  when,  of  a 
sudden,  there  appeared  at  my  still  open  front 
door  a  gorgeous  vision,  —  a  large  and  stately 
lady,  fresh  and  neat,  arrayed  in  flowing  red 
draperies,  with  a  white  lace  fichu  thrown  over 
a  mass  of  luxuriant  golden  hair.  I  stared, 
speechless  with  amazement.  It  was  not  until 
she  spoke  that  I  recognized  the  First  Floor 
Back,  who  had  had  time  to  lay  her  hands  not 
only  on  a  false  front,  but  on  a  whole  wig,  and 

220 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

who  had  had  the  enterprise  to  make  tea  which 
she  invited  me  to  drink  with  her  in  Pepys's 
chambers. 

The  Housekeeper  and  the  Housekeeper's 
daughter  were  already  in  her  dining-room,  the 
Housekeeper  huddled  up  in  a  big  armchair, 
pillows  at  her  back,  a  stool  at  her  feet.  Like 
her  house  she  was  a  wreck,  and  her  demoraliza- 
tion was  sad  to  see.  All  her  life,  until  a  few 
short  hours  ago,  she  had  been  the  model  of 
neatness;  now  she  did  not  care  how  she  looked; 
her  white  hair  was  untidy,  her  dress  half- 
buttoned,  her  apron  forgotten;  and  she,  who 
had  hitherto  discouraged  familiarity  in  the 
tenants,  joined  us  as  a  friend.  She  was  too 
exhausted  for  hysterics,  but  she  moaned  over 
her  tea  and  abandoned  herself  to  her  grief. 
She  could  not  rally,  and,  what  is  more,  she 
did  not  want  to.  She  had  no  life  apart  from 
her  house,  and  in  its  ruin  she  saw  her  own. 
Her  immaculate  hall  was  defaced  and  stained, 
a  blackened  groove  was  worn  in  her  shining 
stairs,  the  water  pouring  through  the  cham- 
bers in  the  front,  down  to  her  own  little 
apartment,  had  turned  them  all  into  a  damp 

221 


Our  House 

and  depressing  mess.  Her  moans  were  the 
ceaseless  accompaniment  to  our  talk  of  the 
night's  disaster.  Always  she  had  waited  for 
the  fire,  she  said,  she  had  dreaded  it,  and  at 
last  it  had  come,  and  there  was  no  sorrow  like 
unto  hers. 

After  the  first  excitement,  after  the  house 
had  resumed,  as  well  as  it  could,  its  usual 
habits,  the  Housekeeper  remained  absorbed 
in  her  grief.  Hitherto  her  particular  habit 
was  to  work,  and  she  had  been  able,  unaided, 
to  keep  the  house  up  to  her  immaculate 
standard  of  perfection.  But  now  to  restore 
it  to  order  was  the  affair  of  builders,  of  plas- 
terers and  painters  and  paperers.  There  was 
nothing  for  her  to  do  save  to  sit  with  hands 
folded  and  watch  the  sacrilege.  Her  occupa- 
tion was  gone,  and  all  was  wrong  with  her 
world. 

I  was  busy  during  the  days  immediately 
"  after  the  fire."  I  had  to  insure  our  belongings, 
which,  of  course,  being  insured,  have  never 
run  such  a  risk  again.  I  had  to  prepare  and 
pack  for  a  journey  to  France,  now  many  days 
overdue,  and,  what  with  one  thing  or  another, 

222 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

I  neglected  the  Housekeeper.  When  at  last  I 
was  ready  to  shut  up  our  chambers  and  start 
and  I  called  at  her  rooms,  it  seemed  to  me  she 
had  visibly  shrunk  and  wilted,  though  she 
had  preserved  enough  of  the  proper  spirit 
to  pocket  the  substantial  tip  I  handed  over  to 
her  with  my  keys.  She  was  no  less  equal  to 
accepting  a  second  when,  after  a  couple  of 
months  I  returned  and  could  not  resist  this 
expression  of  my  sympathy  on  finding  the  hall 
still  stained  and  defaced,  the  stairs  still  with 
their  blackened  groove,  the  workmen  still 
going  and  coming,  and  her  despair  at  the 
spectacle  blacker  than  ever. 

The  next  day  she  came  up  to  our  chambers. 
She  wore  her  best  black  gown  and  no  apron, 
and  from  these  signs  I  concluded  it  was  a 
visit  of  state.  I  was  right:  it  was  to  announce 
her  departure.  The  house,  partially  rebuilt 
and  very  much  patched  up,  would  never  be 
the  same.  She  was  too  old  for  hope,  and  with- 
out the  courage  to  pick  up  the  broken  bits  of 
her  masterpiece  and  put  them  together  again. 
She  was  more  ill  at  ease  as  visitor  than  as 
housekeeper.  The  conversation  languished, 

223 


Our  House 

although  I  fancied  she  had  something  particu- 
lar to  say,  slight  as  was  her  success  in  saying 
it.  We  had  both  been  silent  for  an  awkward 
minute  when  she  blurted  out  abruptly  that 
she  had  never  neglected  her  duty,  no  mat- 
ter what  it  might  or  might  not  have  pleased 
the  tenants  to  give  her.  I  applauded  the 
sentiment  as  admirable,  and  I  said  good-by; 
and  never  once  then,  and  not  until  several 
days  after  she  left  us,  did  it  dawn  upon  me 
that  she  was  waiting  to  accept  graciously  the 
fee  it  was  her  right  in  leaving  to  expect  from 
me.  The  fact  of  my  having  only  just  tipped 
her  liberally  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  A 
housekeeper's  departure  was  an  occasion  for 
money  to  pass  from  the  tenant's  hand  into 
hers,  and  she  had  too  much  respect  for  her 
duty  as  housekeeper  not  to  aiford  me  the 
opportunity  of  doing  mine  as  tenant.  It  was 
absurd,  but  I  was  humiliated  in  my  own  eyes 
when  I  thought  of  the  figure  I  must  cut  in  hers, 
and  I  could  only  hope  she  would  make  allow- 
ance for  me  as  an  ignorant  American. 

How  deep  I  sunk  in  her  esteem,  there  was  no 
means  of  knowing.  I  do  not  think  she  could 

224 


The  Old  Housekeeper 

endure  to  come  to  her  house  as  a  stranger,  for 
she  never  returned.  Neither  did  any  news  of 
her  reach  us.  I  cannot  believe  she  enjoyed  the 
inactive  existence  with  her  daughter  to  which 
she  had  retired,  and  I  should  be  astonished 
if  she  bore  it  long.  In  losing  her  house  she 
had  lost  her  interest  in  life.  Her  work  in  the 
world  was  done. 


VII 

The  New  Housekeeper 


VII 

THE    NEW    HOUSEKEEPER 

IT  had  taken  years  for  the  Old  Housekeeper 
to  mature,  and  I  knew  that  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word  she  could  never  be  replaced.  But  the 
knowledge  did  not  prepare  me  for  the  New 
Housekeeper. 

Mrs.  Haines  was  a  younger  and  apparently 
stronger  woman,  but  she  was  so  casual  in  her 
dress,  and  so  eager  to  emulate  the  lilies  of  the 
field,  as  to  convince  me  that  it  was  not  in  her, 
under  any  conditions,  to  mature  into  a  house- 
keeper at  all.  It  expressed  much,  I  thought, 
that  while  the  Old  Housekeeper  had  always 
been  "the  Housekeeper,"  we  never  knew  Mrs. 
Haines  by  any  name  but  her  own.  The  fact 
that  she  had  a  husband  was  her  recommenda- 
tion to  the  landlord,  who  had  been  alarmed  by 
the  fire  and  the  hysterics  into  which  it  threw 
the  Old  Housekeeper,  and  now  insisted  upon 
a  man  in  the  family  as  an  indispensable  quali- 

229 


Our  House 

fication  for  the  post.  The  advantage  might 
have  been  more  obvious  had  Mr.  Haines  not 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  dodging  the  tenants 
and  helping  them  to  forget  his  presence  in  the 
house.  He  was  not  an  ill-looking  nor  ill-man- 
nered man,  and  shyness  was  the  only  explana- 
tion that  occurred  to  me  for  his  perseverance 
in  avoiding  us.  Work  could  not  force  him  from 
his  retirement.  Mrs.  Haines  said  that  he  was 
a  carpenter  by  trade,  but  the  only  ability  I  ever 
knew  him  to  display  was  in  evading  whatever 
job  I  was  hopeful  enough  to  offer  him.  Besides, 
though  it  might  be  hard  to  say  what  I  think 
a  carpenter  ought  to  look  like,  I  was  certain  he 
did  not  look  like  one,  and  others  shared  my 
doubts. 

The  rumour  spread  through  our  street  — 
where  everybody  rejoices  in  the  knowledge  of 
everything  about  everybody  else  who  lives  in 
it  —  that  he  had  once  been  in  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice, but  had  married  beneath  him  and  come 
down  in  the  world.  How  the  rumour  originated 
I  never  asked,  or  never  was  told  if  I  did  ask; 
but  it  was  so  evident  that  he  shrank  from  the 
practice  of  the  carpenter's  trade  that  once  we 

230 


The  New  Housekeeper 

sent  him  with  a  letter  to  the  Publisher  —  who 
shares  our  love  of  the  neighbourhood  to  the 
point,  not  only  of  publishing  from  it,  but  of  liv- 
ing in  it — asking  if  some  sort  of  place  could  not 
be  found  for  him  in  the  office.  It  was  found,  I 
am  afraid  to  his  disappointment,  for  he  never 
made  any  effort  to  fill  it,  and  was  more  dili- 
gent than  ever  in  keeping  out  of  our  way.  If 
he  saw  us  coming,  on  the  rare  occasions  when 
he  stood  at  the  front  door,  or  the  rarer  when  he 
cleaned  the  gas-bracket  above  it,  he  would  run 
if  there  was  time,  or,  if  there  was  not,  turn  his 
head  and  stare  fixedly  in  the  other  direction 
that  he  might  escape  speaking  to  us.  As  the 
months  went  on,  he  was  never  caught  cleaning 
anything  or  doing  anything  in  the  shape  of 
work,  except  sometimes,  furtively,  as  if  afraid 
of  being  detected  in  the  act,  shutting  the  front 
door  when  the  clocks  of  the  neighbourhood 
struck  eleven.  He  was  far  less  of  a  safeguard 
to  us  than  I  often  fancied  he  thought  we  were 
to  him. 

Mrs.  Haines  was  sufficiently  unlike  him  to 
account  for  one  part  of  the  rumour.  She  was 
coarse  in  appearance  and  disagreeable  in  man- 

231 


Our  House 

ner,  always  on  the  defensive,  always  on  the 
verge  of  flying  into  a  temper.  She  had  no  ob- 
jection to  showing  herself;  on  the  contrary, 
she  was  perpetually  about,  hunting  for  faults 
to  find;  but  she  did  object  to  showing  her- 
self with  a  broom  or  a  duster,  a  pail  or  a  scrub- 
bing-brush in  her  hands.  I  shuddered  some- 
times at  the  thought  of  the  shock  to  the  Old 
Housekeeper  if  she  were  to  see  her  hall  and 
stairs.  We  could  bring  up  coal  now  at  any  hour 
or  all  day  long.  And  yet  Mrs.  Haines  tyran- 
nized over  us  in  her  own  fashion,  and  her 
tyranny  was  the  more  unbearable  because  it 
had  no  end  except  to  spare  herself  trouble.  Her 
one  thought  was  to  do  nothing  and  get  paid  for 
it.  She  resented  extra  exertion  without  extra 
compensation.  We  never  had  been  so  bullied 
about  coal  under  the  old  regime  as  we  were 
under  hers  about  a  drain-pipe  with  a  trick  of 
overflowing.  It  might  have  drowned  us  in  our 
chambers  and  she  would  not  have  stirred  to 
save  us;  but  its  outlet  was  in  a  little  paved 
court  back  of  her  kitchen,  which  it  was  one  of 
her  duties  to  keep  in  order,  and  she  considered 
every  overflow  a  rank  injustice.  She  held  the 
232 


The  New  Housekeeper 

tenants  in  turn  responsible,  and  would  descend 
upon  us  like  a  Fury  upbraiding  us  for  our  care- 
lessness. It  would  never  have  surprised  me 
had  she  ordered  us  down  to  clean  up  the  court 
for  her. 

I  must  in  fairness  add  that  when  extra  exer- 
tion meant  extra  money  she  did  not  shirk  it. 
Nor  was  she  without  accomplishments.  She 
was  an  excellent  needlewoman :  she  altered  and 
renovated  more  than  one  gown  for  me,  she 
made  me  chair-covers,  she  mended  my  carpets. 
During  the  first  years  she  was  in  the  house  she 
never  refused  any  needlework,  and  often  she 
asked  me  for  more.  She  would  come  up  and 
wait  for  me  at  table  on  the  shortest  notice.  In 
an  emergency  she  would  even  cook  me  a  dinner 
which,  in  its  colourless  English  way,  was  admir- 
able. There  is  no  denying  that  she  could  be 
useful,  but  her  usefulness  had  a  special  tariff. 

It  was  also  in  her  favour  that  she  was  a  lover 
of  cats,  and  their  regard  for  her  was  as  good  as 
a  certificate.  I  came  to  be  on  the  best  of  terms 
with  hers,  Bogie  by  name,  a  tall  ungainly 
tabby,  very  much  the  worse  for  wear.  He 
spent  a  large  part  of  his  time  on  the  street,  and 

233 


Our  House 

often,  as  I  came  or  went,  he  would  be  returning 
home  and  would  ask  me,  in  a  way  not  to  be 
resisted,  to  ring  her  door-bell  for  him.  Some- 
times I  waited  to  exchange  a  few  remarks  with 
him,  for,  though  his  voice  was  husky  and  not 
one  of  his  attractions,  he  had  always  plenty  to 
say.  On  these  occasions  I  was  a  witness  of  his 
pleasure  in  seeing  his  mistress  again,  though 
his  absence  might  have  been  short,  and  of  her 
enthusiasm  in  receiving  him.  Unquestionably 
they  understood  each  other,  and  cats  are  ani- 
mals of  discrimination. 

She  extended  her  affection  to  cats  that  did 
not  belong  to  her,  and  ours  came  in  for  many 
of  her  attentions.  Our  Jimmy,  who  had  the 
freedom  of  the  streets,  often  paid  her  a  visit 
on  his  way  out  or  in,  as  I  knew  he  would  not 
have  done  if  she  had  not  made  the  time  pass 
agreeably;  for  if  he,  like  all  cats,  disliked  to  be 
bored,  he  knew  better  than  most  how  to  avoid 
the  possibility.  One  of  his  favourite  haunts 
was  the  near  Strand,  probably  because  he  was 
sure  to  meet  his  friends  there.  It  was  a  joy  to 
him,  if  we  had  been  out  late  in^the  evening,  to 
run  across  us  as  we  returned.  With  a  fervent 

234 


The  New  Housekeeper 

"mow"  of  greeting,  he  was  at  our  side;  and 
then,  his  tail  high  in  the  air,  and  singing  a  song 
of  rapture,  he  would  come  with  us  to  our  front 
door,  linger  until  he  had  seen  us  open  it,  when, 
his  mind  at  rest  for  our  safety,  he  would  hurry 
back  to  his  revels.  We  considered  this  a  privi- 
lege, and  our  respect  for  Mrs.  Haines  was  in- 
creased when  he  let  her  share  it,  even  in  the 
daytime.  He  was  known  to  join  her  in  the 
Strand,  not  far  from  Charing  Cross,  walk  with 
her  to  Wellington  Street,  cross  over,  wait  po- 
litely while  she  bought  tickets  at  the  Lyceum 
for  one  of  the  tenants,  cross  again,  and  walk 
back  with  her.  He  was  also  known  to  sit  down 
in  the  middle  of  the  Strand,  and  divert  the 
traffic  better  than  a  "Bobby,"  until  Mrs. 
Haines,  when  everybody  else  had  failed,  en- 
ticed him  away.  He  deserved  the  tribute  of  her 
tears,  and  she  shed  many,  when  the  Vet  kindly 
released  him  from  the  physical  ruin  to  which 
exposure  and  a  life  of  dissipation  had  reduced 
him. 

William  Penn  showed  her  the  same  friendli- 
ness, but  from  him  it  was  not  so  marked,  for 
he  was  a  cat  of  democratic  tastes  and,  next  to 

235 


Our  House 

his  family,  preferred  the  people  who  worked 
for  them.  He  had  not  as  much  opportunity  for 
his  civilities  as  Jimmy,  never  being  allowed  to 
leave  our  chambers.  But  when  Mrs.  Haines 
was  busy  in  our  kitchen,  he  occupied  more  than 
a  fair  portion  of  her  time,  for  which  she  made 
no  reduction  in  the  bill.  William's  charms  were 
so  apt  to  distract  me  from  my  work  that  I 
could  say  nothing,  and  her  last  kindness  of  all 
when  he  died  —  in  his  case  of  too  luxuriant 
living  and  too  little  exercise,  the  Vet  said  — 
would  make  me  forgive  her  much  worse.  Ac- 
cording to  my  friend,  Miss  Repplier,  a  cat 
"considers  dying  a  strictly  private  aifair."  But 
William  Penn's  death-bed  was  a  public  aifair, 
at  least  for  Augustine  and  myself,  who  sat  up 
with  him  through  the  night  of  his  agony.  We 
were  both  exhausted  by  morning,  unfit  to  cope 
with  the  problem  of  his  funeral.  Chambers  are 
without  any  convenient  corner  to  serve  as  cem- 
etery, and  I  could  not  trust  the  most  impor- 
tant member  of  the  family  to  the  dust-man  for 
burial.  I  do  not  know  what  I  should  have  done 
but  for  Mrs.  Haines.  It  was  she  who  arranged, 
by  a  bribe  I  would  willingly  have  doubled,  that 

236 


The  New  Housekeeper 

during  the  dinner-hour,  when  the  head-gar- 
dener was  out  of  the  way,  William  should  be 
laid  to  rest  in  the  garden  below  our  windows. 
She  was  the  only  mourner  with  Augustine  and 
myself, —  J.  was  abroad,  —  when,  from  above, 
we  watched  the  assistant  gardener  lower  him 
into  his  little  grave  under  the  tree  where  the 
wood-pigeons  have  their  nest. 

If  I  try  now  to  make  the  best  of  what  was 
good  in  Mrs.  Haines,  at  the  time  she  did  not 
give  me  much  chance.  Grumbling  was  such  a 
habit  with  her  that,  even  had  the  Socialists' 
Millennium  come,  she  would  have  kept  on,  if 
only  because  it  removed  all  other  reason  for 
her  grumbles.  Her  prejudice  against  work  of 
any  kind  did  not  lessen  her  displeasure  with 
everybody  who  did  not  provide  her  with  work 
of  some  kind  to  do.  She  treated  me  as  if  I  im- 
posed on  her  when  I  asked  her  to  sew  or  to  mend 
or  to  cook,  and  she  abused  the  other  tenants 
because  they  did  not  ask  her.  This  indeed  was 
her  principal  grievance.  She  could  not  see  why 
they  were  in  the  house  if  it  were  not  to  increase 
her  income,  and  she  hated  the  landlord  for  hav- 
ing led  her  to  believe  they  would.  She  paid  me 

237 


Our  House 

innumerable  visits,  the  object  of  which  never 
varied.  It  was  to  borrow,  which  she  did  with- 
out shame  or  apology.  She  never  hesitated  in 
her  demands,  she  never  cringed.  She  ran 
short  because  the  other  tenants  were  not  doing 
the  fair  and  square  thing  by  her,  and  she  did 
not  see  why  she  should  not  draw  upon  me  for 
help.  One  inexhaustible  debt  was  the  monthly 
bill  for  her  furniture,  bought  on  the  instalment 
system  and  forfeited  if  any  one  instalment 
were  not  met.  I  do  not  remember  how  many 
pounds  I  advanced,  but  enough  to  suggest  that 
she  had  furnished  her  rooms,  of  which  she 
never  gave  me  as  much  as  a  glimpse,  in  a  style 
far  beyond  her  means.  I  could  afford  to  be 
amiable,  for  I  knew  I  could  make  her  pay  me 
back  in  work,  though  my  continual  loans  did 
so  little  to  improve  her  financial  affairs  that 
after  a  while  my  patience  gave  out,  and  I 
refused  to  advance  another  penny. 

It  was  not  until  the  illness  of  her  husband, 
after  they  had  been  in  the  house  for  some  two 
years,  that  I  realized  the  true  condition  of 
things  behind  the  door  they  kept  so  carefully 
closed.  The  illness  was  sudden,  so  far  as  I 

238 


The  New  Housekeeper 

knew.  I  had  not  seen  Mr.  Haines  for  long,  but 
I  was  accustomed  to  not  seeing  him,  and  curi- 
ously, when  Mrs.  Haines's  need  was  greatest, 
she  showed  some  reluctance  in  asking  to  be 
helped  out  of  it.  Her  husband  was  dying  be- 
fore she  appealed  to  anybody,  and  then  it  was 
not  to  me,  but  to  Mrs.  Burden,  my  old  char- 
woman, who  was  so  poor  that  I  had  always 
fancied  that  to  be  poorer  still  meant  to  live  in 
the  streets  or  on  the  rates.  But  Mrs.  Haines 
was  so  much  worse  off,  that  Mrs.  Burden,  in 
telling  me  about  it,  thanked  Our  Lady  that  she 
had  never  fallen  so  low.  It  was  cold  winter  and 
there  was  no  fire,  no  coal,  no  wood,  behind  the 
closed  door.  The  furniture  for  which  I  had  ad- 
vanced so  many  pounds  consisted,  I  now  found 
out,  of  two  or  three  rickety  chairs  and  a  square 
of  tattered  carpet  in  the  front  room,  a  few  pots 
and  pans  in  the  kitchen.  In  the  dark  bedroom 
between,  the  dying  man  lay  on  a  hard  board 
stretched  on  the  top  of  a  packing-box,  shiver- 
ing under  his  threadbare  overcoat,  so  pitiful 
in  his  misery  and  suffering  that  Mrs.  Burden 
was  moved  to  compassion  and  hurried  home 
to  fetch  him  the  blankets  from  her  own  bed 

239 


Our  House 

and  buy  him  a  pennyworth  of  milk  on  the 
way. 

When  the  tenants  knew  how  it  was  with 
Mrs.  Haines  and  her  husband,  as  now  they 
could  not  help  knowing,  they  remembered 
only  that  he  was  ill,  and  they  sent  for  the  doc- 
tor and  paid  for  medicine,  and  did  what  they 
could  to  lighten  the  gloom  of  the  two  or  three 
days  left  to  him.  And  they  arranged  for  a 
decent  burial,  feeling,  I  think,  that  a  man  who 
had  been  in  the  Civil  Service  should  not  lie  in 
a  pauper's  grave.  For  a  week  or  so  we  won- 
dered again  who  he  was,  why  he  kept  so  per- 
sistently out  of  sight;  after  that  we  thought  as 
little  of  him  as  when  he  had  skulked,  a  shadow, 
between  his  rooms  and  the  street  door  on  the 
stroke  of  eleven. 

Hitherto  everybody  had  been  patient  with 
Mrs.  Haines,  for  the  London  housekeeper, 
though  she  has  not  got  the  tenants  as  com- 
pletely in  her  power  as  the  Paris  concierge,  can, 
if  she  wants,  make  things  very  disagreeable 
for  them.  Now  that  she  was  alone  in  the 
world,  everybody  was  kind  to  her.  The  landlord 
overlooked  his  announced  decision  "to  sack 

240 


The  New  Housekeeper 

the  pair,"  and  retained  her  as  housekeeper, 
though  in  losing  her  husband  she  had  lost  her 
principal  recommendation.  The  tenants  raised 
a  fund  to  enable  her  to  buy  the  mourning 
which  is  often  a  consolation  in  widowhood. 
Work  was  offered  to  her  in  chambers  which 
she  had  never  entered  before,  and  I  added  to 
the  tasks  in  ours.  The  housekeepers  in  the 
street  with  families  to  support  must  have 
envied  her.  She  had  her  rooms  rent  free,  wages 
from  the  landlord,  plenty  of  extra  work,  and 
though  this  might  not  seem  affluence  to  people 
who  do  not  measure  their  income  by  pence  or 
scramble  for  the  odd  shilling,  it  was  wealth  in 
housekeeping  circles. 

Mrs.  Haines,  however,  did  not  see  her  posi- 
tion in  that  light.  She  had  complained  when 
work  was  not  offered  to  her,  she  complained 
more  bitterly  when  it  was.  Perhaps  her  hus- 
band had  had  some  restraining  influence  upon 
her.  I  cannot  say;  but  certainly  once  he  was 
gone,  she  gave  up  all  pretence  of  controlling 
her  temper.  She  would  sweep  like  a  hurricane 
through  the  house,  raging  and  raving,  on  the 
slightest  provocation.  She  led  us  a  worse  life 

241 


Our  House 

than  ever  over  the  drain-pipe.  She  left  the 
house  more  and  more  to  take  care  of  itself, 
dust  lying  thick  wherever  dust  could  lie,  the 
stairs  turned  to  a  dingy  grey,  the  walls  black- 
ened with  London  smoke  and  grime.  Once  in  a 
while  she  hired  a  forlorn,  ragged  old  woman  to 
wash  the  stairs  and  brush  the  front-door  mat, 
for  in  London,  more  than  anywhere  else,  "pov- 
erty is  a  comparative  thing,"  and  every  degree 
has  one  below  to  "soothe"  it.  No  matter  how 
hard  up  Mrs.  Haines  was,  she  managed  to 
scrape  together  a  few  pennies  to  pay  to  have 
the  work  done  for  her  rather  than  do  it  herself. 
The  greater  part  of  her  leisure  she  spent  out  of 
the  house,  and  when  I  passed  her  door  I  would 
see  pinned  up  on  it  a  bit  of  paper  stating  in 
neat,  even  elegant,  writing,  "Apply  on  the 
First  Floor  for  the  Housekeeper,"  or  "Gone 
out.  Back  in  ten  minutes";  and  hours,  some- 
times days,  later  the  same  notice  would  still 
be  there.  She  became  as  neglectful  of  herself 
as  of  the  house:  her  one  dress  grew  shabbier 
and  shabbier,  her  apron  was  discarded,  no  de- 
tail of  her  toilet  was  attended  to  except  the 
frizzing  of  her  coarse  black  hair.  All  this  came 

242 


The  New  Housekeeper 

about  not  at  once,  but  step  by  step,  and  things 
were  very  bad  before  J.  and  I  admitted,  even 
to  each  other,  that  she  was  a  disgrace  to  the 
house.  We  would  admit  it  to  nobody  else,  and 
to  my  surprise  the  other  tenants  were  as  for- 
bearing. I  suppose  it  was  because  they  under- 
stood, as  well  as  we  did,  that  at  a  word  to  the 
landlord  she  would  be  adrift  in  London,  where 
for  one  vacant  post  of  housekeeper  there  are 
a  hundred  applications.  To  banish  her  from 
our  own  chambers,  however,  was  not  to  drive 
her  to  the  workhouse,  and  I  called  for  her  ser- 
vices less  and  less  often. 

There  was  another  reason  for  my  not  em- 
ploying her  to  which  I  have  not  so  far  referred, 
the  reason  really  of  her  slovenliness  and  bad 
temper  and  gradual  deterioration.  I  shut  my 
eyes  as  long  as  I  could.  But  I  was  prepared  for 
the  whispers  that  began  to  be  heard,  not  only 
in  our  house,  but  up  and  down  our  street.  What 
started  them  I  do  not  know,  but  the  morning 
and  evening  gatherings  of  the  housekeepers 
at  their  doors  were  not  held  for  nothing,  and 
presently  it  got  about  that  Mrs.  Haines  had 
been  seen  stealing  in  and  out  of  a  public-house, 

243 


Our  House 

and  that  this  public-house  was  just  beyond  the 
border-line  of  the  Quarter,  which  looked  as  if 
she  were  endeavouring  to  escape  the  vigilant 
eyes  of  our  gossips.  Then,  as  invariably  hap- 
pens, the  whispers  grew  louder,  the  evidence 
against  her  circumstantial,  and  everybody 
was  saying  quite  openly  where  her  money  dis- 
appeared and  why  she  became  shabbier,  her 
rooms  barer,  and  the  house  more  disreputable. 
It  leaked  out  that  her  husband  also  had  been 
seen  flitting  from  public-house  to  public-house; 
and,  the  game  of  concealment  by  this  time  be- 
ing up,  it  was  bluntly  said  that  drink  had  killed 
him,  as  it  would  Mrs.  Haines  if  she  went  on  as 
she  was  going. 

I  had  kept  my  suspicions  to  myself,  but  she 
had  never  come  to  our  chambers  at  the  hour 
of  lunch  or  dinner  that  there  was  not  an  un- 
usual drain  upon  our  modest  wine-cellar.  I 
could  not  fancy  that  it  was  merely  a  coinci- 
dence, that  friends  dining  with  us  were  in- 
variably thirstier  when  she  waited  or  cooked; 
but  her  appearance  had  been  the  invariable 
signal  for  the  disappearance  of  our  wine  at  a 
rate  that  made  my  employment  of  her  a  costly 

244 


The  New  Housekeeper 

luxury.  I  never  saw  her  when  I  could  declare 
she  had  been  drinking,  but  drink  she  did,  and 
there  was  no  use  my  beating  about  the  bush 
and  calling  it  by  another  name.  It  would  have 
been  less  hopeless  had  she  occasionally  be- 
trayed herself,  had  her  speech  thickened  and 
her  walk  become  unsteady.  But  hers  was  the 
deadliest  form  of  the  evil,  because  it  gave  no 
sign.  There  was  nothing  to  check  it  except 
every  now  and  then  a  mysterious  attack  of 
illness,  —  which  she  said  defied  the  doctor 
though  it  defied  nobody  in  the  house,  —  or 
the  want  of  money;  but  a  housekeeper  must 
be  far  gone  if  she  cannot  pick  up  a  shilling  here 
and  a  half-crown  there.  I  was  the  last  of  the 
old  tenants  to  employ  her,  but  after  I  aban- 
doned her  she  still  had  another  chance  with  a 
newcomer  who  took  the  chambers  below  ours, 
and,  finding  them  too  small  to  keep  more  than 
one  servant,  engaged  her  for  a  liberal  amount 
of  work.  She  bought  aprons  and  a  new  black 
blouse  and  skirt,  and  she  was  so  spruce  and 
neat  in  them  that  I  was  encouraged  to  hope. 
But  before  the  end  of  the  first  week,  she  was 
met  on  the  stairs  coming  down  from  his  room 

245 


Our  House 

to  hers  with  a  bottle  under  her  apron;  at  the 
end  of  the  second  she  was  dismissed. 

I  hardly  dare  think  how  she  lived  after  this. 
With  every  Christmas  there  was  a  short  period 
of  prosperity,  though  it  dwindled  as  the  ten- 
ants began  to  realize  where  their  money  went. 
For  a  time  J.  and  I  got  her  to  keep  our  bi- 
cycles, other  people  in  the  house  followed  suit, 
and  during  several  months  she  was  paid  rent 
for  as  many  as  six,  keeping  them  in  the  empty 
sitting-room  from  which  even  the  rickety 
chairs  had  disappeared,  and  where  the  floor 
now  was  thick  with  grease  and  stained  with 
oil.  If  we  had  trunks  to  store  or  boxes  to  un- 
pack, she  would  let  us  the  same  room  for  as 
long  as  we  wanted,  and  so  she  managed,  one 
way  or  the  other,  by  hook  or  by  crook.  But  it 
was  a  makeshift  existence,  all  the  more  so 
when  her  habits  began  to  tell  on  her  physically. 
She  was  ill  half  the  time,  and  by  the  end  of  her 
fourth  year  in  the  house,  I  do  not  believe  she 
could  have  sewed  or  waited  or  cooked,  had 
she  had  the  chance.  She  had  no  friends,  no 
companions,  save  her  cat.  They  were  a  grim 
pair,  she  with  hungry,  shifty  eyes  glowing  like 

246 


fires  in  the  pallor  of  her  face,  he  more  gaunt 
and  ungainly  than  ever:  for  a  witch  and  her 
familiar  they  would  have  been  burnt  not  so 
many  hundred  years  ago. 

Then  we  heard  that  she  was  taking  in  lodgers, 
that  women  with  the  look  of  hunted  creatures 
stole  into  her  rooms  at  strange  hours  of  the 
night.  Some  said  they  were  waifs  and  strays 
from  the  "Halls,"  others  that  they  were  wan- 
derers from  the  Strand;  all  agreed  that,  who- 
ever they  were,  they  must  be  as  desperately 
poor  as  she,  to  seek  shelter  where  the  only 
bed  was  the  floor.  Much  had  been  passed  over, 
but  I  knew  that  such  lodgers  were  more  than 
landlord  and  tenants  could  endure,  and  I  had 
not  to  be  a  prophet  to  foresee  that  the  end  was 
approaching. 

It  came  more  speedily  than  I  thought, 
though  the  manner  of  it  was  not  left  to  land- 
lord and  tenants.  Christmas,  her  fifth  in  the 
house,  had  filled  her  purse  again.  Tenants 
were  less  liberal,  it  is  true,  but  she  must  have 
had  at  least  five  or  six  pounds,  to  which  a  tur- 
key and  plum  pudding  had  been  added  by 
our  neighbour  across  the  hall,  who  was  of  a 

247 


Our  House 

generous  turn.  She  had  therefore  the  essen- 
tials of  what  passes  for  a  merry  Christmas,  but 
how  much  merriment  there  was  in  hers  I  had 
no  way  of  telling.  On  holidays  in  London  I 
keep  indoors  if  I  can,  not  caring  to  face  the 
sadness  of  the  streets  or  the  dreariness  of 
house-parties,  and  I  did  not  go  downstairs  on 
Christmas  Day,  nor  on  Boxing  Day  which  is 
the  day  after.  Mrs.  Haines,  if  she  came  up, 
did  not  present  herself  at  our  chambers.  I 
trust  she  was  gay  because,  as  it  turned  out, 
it  was  her  last  chance  for  gaiety  at  this  or  any 
other  season.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  fol- 
lowing Boxing  Day  she  was  seized  with  one 
of  her  mysterious  attacks.  A  lodger  was  with 
her,  but,  from  fright,  or  stupidity,  or  perhaps 
worse,  called  no  one  till  dawn,  when  she  rang 
up  the  housekeeper  next  door  and  vanished. 
The  housekeeper  next  door  went  at  once  for 
the  doctor  who  attends  to  us  all  in  the  Quarter. 
It  was  too  late.  Mrs.  Haines  was  dead  when 
he  reached  the  house. 

Death  was  merciful,  freeing  her  from  the 
evil  fate  that  threatened,  for  she  was  at 
the  end  of  everything.  She  went  out  of  the 

248 


The  New  Housekeeper 

world  as  naked  as  she  came  into  it.  Her  rooms 
were  empty,  there  was  not  so  much  as  a  crust 
of  bread  in  her  kitchen,  in  her  purse  were  two 
farthings.  Her  only  clothes  were  those  she  had 
just  taken  off  and  the  few  rags  wrapped  about 
her  for  the  night.  Destitution  could  not  be 
more  complete,  and  the  horror  was  to  find  it, 
not  round  the  corner,  not  at  the  door,  but  in 
the  very  house,  and,  worse,  to  know  that  it  de- 
served no  pity.  As  she  had  sown,  so  had  she 
reaped,  and  the  grave  was  the  kindliest  shelter 
for  the  harvest. 

The  day  after,  her  sister  appeared,  from 
where,  summoned  by  whom,  I  do  not  know.  She 
was  a  decent,  serious  woman,  who  attended  to 
everything,  and  when  the  funeral  was  over, 
called  on  all  the  tenants.  She  wanted,  she 
told  me,  to  thank  us  for  all  our  kindness  to 
her  sister,  whom  kindness  had  so  little  helped. 
She  volunteered  no  explanation,  she  only  sighed 
her  regrets.  She  could  not  understand,  she 
said. 

Nor  could  I.  No  doubt,  daily  in  the  slums, 
many  women  die  as  destitute.  But  they  never 
had  their  chance.  Mrs.  Haines  had  hers,  and 

249 


Our  House 

a  fair  one  as  these  things  go.  Her  tragedy  has 
shaken  my  confidence  in  the  reformers  to- 
day who  would  work  the  miracle,  and,  with 
equal  chances  for  all  men,  transform  this  sad 
world  of  ours  into  Utopia. 


VIII 

Our  Beggars 


VIII 

OUR   BEGGARS 

I  KNOW  our  Beggars  by  their  ring.  When 
the  front  door-bell  is  pulled  with  insolent  vio- 
lence, "That,"  I  say  to  myself,  "is  a  Beggar," 
and  I  am  usually  right. 

Ours  are  not  the  Beggars  of  whose  decay 
Elia  complained;  though  he  could  not  have 
believed  that  the  art  of  begging  was  in  any 
more  danger  of  being  lost  than  the  art  of  ly- 
ing. His  sort  have  still  their  place  at  the 
crowded  crossing,  at  the  corners  of  streets  and 
turnings  of  alleys  —  they  are  always  with  us. 
I  rarely  go  out  that  I  do  not  meet  the  cripple 
who  swings  himself  along  on  his  crutches 
through  the  throngs  at  Charing  Cross,  or  the 
blind  man  who  taps  his  way  down  the  Strand, 
or  the  paralytic  in  her  little  cart  close  to  St. 
Martin's,  and  I  too  should  complain  were 
they  to  disappear.  These  are  Beggars  I  do 
not  mind.  They  have  their  picturesque  uses. 

253 


Our  House 

They  carry  on  an  old  tradition.  They  are 
licensed  to  molest  me,  and  their  demands, 
with  their  thanks  when  I  give  and  their  curses 
when  I  do  not,  are  the  methods  of  a  venerable 
and  honoured  calling.  Besides,  I  can  escape 
them  if  I  choose.  I  can  cross  the  street  at  the 
approach  of  the  cripple,  I  can  dodge  the  blind 
man,  I  can  look  away  as  I  pass  the  paralytic, 
and  so  avoid  the  irritation  of  giving  when  I  do 
not  want  to  or  the  discomfort  of  hearing  their 
opinion  of  me  when  I  refuse.  But  to  our  Beg- 
gars I  do  object,  and  from  them  there  is  no 
escape.  They  belong  to  a  new  species,  and 
have  abandoned  the  earlier  methods  as  crude 
and  primitive.  They  make  a  profession  neither 
of  disease  nor  of  deformity,  but  of  having 
come  down  in  the  world.  They  scorn  to  stoop 
to  "rags  and  the  wallet,"  which  they  have  ex- 
changed for  a  top  hat  and  frock  coat.  They 
take  out  no  license,  for  they  never  beg  in  the 
streets;  instead,  they  assault  us  at  our  door, 
where  they  do  not  ask  for  alms  but  claim  the 
gift,  they  call  a  loan,  as  their  right.  They  are 
bullies,  brigands,  who  would  thrust  the  virtue 
of  charity  upon  us,  and  if,  as  the  philosopher 

254' 


Our  Beggars 

thinks,  it  is  a  test  of  manners  to  receive,  they 
come  out  of  it  with  dignity,  for  their  fiction 
of  a  loan  saves  them,  and  us,  from  the  profes- 
sional profuseness  of  the  Beggar's  thanks. 

It  was  only  when  I  moved  into  chambers  in 
the  Quarter  that  they  began  to  come  to  see  me. 
Hitherto,  my  life  in  London  had  been  spent 
in  lodgings,  where,  if  I  was  never  free  from 
Beggars  in  the  form  of  those  intimate  friends 
who  are  always  short  of  ten  pounds  to  pay  their 
rent  or  ten  shillings  to  buy  a  hat,  it  was  the 
landlady's  affair  when  the  Beggars  who  were 
strangers  called. 

Chambers,  however,  gave  me  a  front  door  at 
which  they  could  ring  and  an  address  in  the 
Directory  in  which  they  could  find  out  where 
the  door  was;  and  had  my  object  been  to 
make  a  study  of  them  and  their  manners,  I 
could  not  have  hit  upon  a  better  place  to  col- 
lect my  material. 

Not  that  Beggars  are  encouraged  in  the 
Quarter,  where  more  than  one  society  devoted 
to  their  scientific  suppression  has,  or  has  had, 
an  office,  and  where  the  lady  opposite  does 
not  wait  for  science,  but  sends  them  flying  the 
255 


Our  House 

minute  she  catches  them  in  our  streets.  The 
man  who  loafs  in  front  of  our  club,  and  who 
opens  cab-doors  for  members,  and  as  many 
more  as  he  can  capture,  might  be  mistaken 
for  a  Beggar  by  anybody  who  did  not  know 
the  Quarter,  but  we  who  do  know  it  under- 
stand that  he  is  loafing  by  special  appoint- 
ment. The  small  boy  who  has  lately  taken  to 
selling  his  single  box  of  matches  on  our  Ter- 
race does  so  officially,  as  the  brass  label  on  his 
arm  explains.  And  nothing  could  be  more  ex- 
ceptional than  the  cheerful  person  who  the 
other  day  reeled  after  the  Publisher  and  my- 
self into  one  of  our  houses  where  there  is  an 
elevator  —  for  to  elevators  we  have  come  in  the 
Quarter  —  the  thin  end  of  the  modern  wedge 
that  threatens  its  destruction  —  and  addressed 
the  Publisher  so  affectionately  as  "Colonel" 
that  we  both  retreated  into  the  elevator  and 
pressed  the  button  for  the  top  floor. 

But  the  Beggars  we  keep  off  our  streets,  we 
cannot  keep  from  our  front  doors.  J.  and  I  had 
hardly  settled  in  chambers  before  we  were 
besieged.  People  were  immediately  in  need  of 
our  help  who  up  till  then  had  managed  with- 

256 


Our  Beggars 

out  it,  and  to  our  annoyance  they  have  been 
in  need  of  it  ever  since.  They  present  them- 
selves in  so  many  different  guises,  by  so  many 
different  methods,  that  it  is  impossible  to  be 
on  our  guard  against  them  all.  Some  sneak 
in  with  the  post,  and  our  correspondence  has 
doubled  in  bulk.  Dukes,  Earls,  Marquises, 
Baronets,  favour  us  with  lithographed  let- 
ters, signing  their  names  at  the  bottom,  writ- 
ing ours  at  the  top,  and  demanding  our  con- 
tribution to  charities  they  approve,  as  the 
price  of  so  amazing  a  condescension.  Ladies 
of  rank  cannot  give  their  benevolent  balls  and 
banquets  unless  we  buy  tickets,  nor  can  they 
conceive  of  our  dismissing  their  personal  ap- 
peal. Clergymen  start  missions  that  we  may 
finance  them,  bazaars  are  opened  that  we  may 
fill  the  stalls  with  the  free  offering  of  the  work 
by  which  we  make  our  living,  and  albums  are 
raffled  that  we  may  grace  them  with  our  auto- 
graphs. We  might  think  that  the  post  was 
invented  for  the  benefit  of  people  whose  idea 
of  charity  is  to  do  the  begging  and  get  us  to 
do  the  giving.  Many  of  our  Beggars  like  better 
to  beg  in  person:  sometimes  as  nurses  with 

257 


Our  House 

tickets  to  sell  for  a  concert,  or  as  Little  Sisters 
of  the  Poor  —  whom  I  welcome,  having  pre- 
served a  sentiment  for  any  variety  of  cap  and 
veil  since  my  own  convent  days;  sometimes 
as  people  with  things  to  sell  at  the  biggest 
price,  that  we  would  not  want  at  the  lowest, 
or  with  patent  inventions  that  we  would  not 
take  as  a  gift,  and  who  are  indignant  if  we  de- 
cline to  be  taxed  for  the  privilege  of  not  buy- 
ing or  subscribing.  But  the  most  numerous 
of  our  Beggars,  the  most  persistent,  the  most 
liberal  in  their  expectations,  are  the  men,  and 
more  occasionally  the  women,  who,  having 
come  down  in  the  world,  look  to  us  to  set  them 
up  again,  and  would  be  the  first  to  resent  it 
if  our  generosity  ran  to  any  such  extravagant 
lengths. 

Their  patronage  of  the  Quarter  is  doubtless 
due,  partly  to  its  being  close  to  the  Strand, 
which  is  an  excellent  centre  for  their  line  of 
business;  partly  to  a  convenient  custom  with 
us  of  leaving  all  street  doors  hospitably  open 
and  inscribing  the  names  of  tenants  in  big  gilt 
letters  on  the  wall  just  inside ;  partly  to  the 
fact  that  we  are  not  five  minutes  from  a  Free 

258 


Our  Beggars 

Library,  where  they  can  agreeably  fill  their 
hours  of  leisure  by  the  study  of  "Who  's  Who," 
"The  Year's  Art,"  and  other  books  in  which 
publishers  obligingly  supply  the  information 
about  us  which  to  them  is  as  valuable  an  as- 
set as  a  crutch  to  the  cripple  or  a  staff  to  the 
blind.  Provided  by  the  Directory  with  our 
address,  they  may  already  know  where  to 
look  us  up  and  how  to  establish  an  acquaint- 
ance by  asking  for  us  by  name  at  our  door; 
but  it  is  this  cramming  in  the  facts  of  our  life 
that  enables  them  to  talk  to  us  familiarly  about 
our  work  until  acquaintance  has  ripened  into 
intimacy  and  the  business  of  begging  is  put 
on  a  personal  and  friendly  footing.  Great  as  is 
the  good  which  Mr.  Carnegie  must  have  hoped 
to  accomplish  by  his  Free  Libraries,  even  he 
could  have  had  no  idea  of  the  boon  they  might 
prove  to  Beggars  and  the  healthy  stimulus 
to  the  art  of  begging  which  they  develop. 

In  the  beginning  our  Beggars  had  no  great 
fault  to  find  with  us.  Their  frock  coats  and 
top  hats,  signs  of  real  British  respectability, 
carried  them  past  the  British  porter  and  the 
British  servant.  When  they  crossed  our  thresh- 
259 


Our  House 

old,  some  remnant  of  the  barbarous  instinct 
of  hospitality  compelled  us  to  receive  them  with 
civility,  if  not  with  cordiality.  We  never  went 
so  far  as,  with  the  Spaniard,  to  offer  them  our 
house  and  all  that  is  in  it,  another  instinct 
warning  us  how  little  they  would  mind  taking 
us  at  our  word;  nor  did  hospitality  push  us 
to  the  extreme  of  being  hoodwinked  by  their 
tales.  But  in  those  days  we  seldom  let  them 
go  without  something,  which  was  always  more 
than  they  deserved  since  they  deserved  nothing. 
If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  Beggar's  Baedeker, 
I  am  sure  our  chambers  were  specially  re- 
commended in  earlier  editions.  In  justice,  I 
must  confess  that  they  gave  us  entertainment 
for  our  money,  and  that  the  very  tricks  of  the 
trade  were  amusing — that  is,  while  the  novelty 
lasted.  We  liked  the  splendid  assurance  of 
their  manner;  the  pretended  carelessness  with 
which  a  foot  was  quickly  thrust  through  the 
opening  of  the  door  so  they  could  be  shut  out 
only  by  force;  the  important  air  with  which 
they  asked  for  a  few  minutes'  talk;  the  insinu- 
ating smile  with  which  they  presumed  that 
we  remembered  them;  their  cool  assumption 

260 


Our  Beggars 

that  their  burden  was  ours,  and  that  the  kind- 
ness was  all  on  their  side  for  permitting  us  the 
privilege  of  bearing  it.  And  we  liked  no  less 
their  infinite  trouble  in  inventing  romances 
about  themselves  that  Munchausen  could  not 
have  beaten,  their  dramatic  use  of  foggy  nights 
and  wild  storms,  their  ingenuity  in  discover- 
ing a  bond  between  us,  and  their  plausibility 
in  proving  why  it  obliged  us  to  meet  their 
temporary  difficulties  which  were  never  of 
course  of  their  own  making.  Nor  could  we  but 
admire  their  superiority  to  mere  charity,  their 
belief  in  the  equal  division  of  wealth,  their 
indifference  as  to  who  did  the  work  to  create 
the  wealth  so  long  as  they  did  not  do  it  them- 
selves, and  their  trust  in  the  obligation  im- 
posed by  a  craft  in  common.  Had  they  be- 
stowed half  the  pains  in  practising  this  craft 
that  they  squandered  in  wheedling  a  few 
shillings  from  us  on  the  strength  of  it,  they 
must  long  since  have  been  acknowledged  its 
masters. 

The  first  of  our  Beggars,  whom  I  probably 
remember  the  better  because  he  was  the  first, 
flattered  me  by  introducing  himself  as  a  fel- 

261 


Our  House 

low  author  at  a  time  when  I  had  published  but 
one  book  and  had  won  by  it  neither  fame  nor 
fortune.  What  he  had  published  himself  he 
did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  mention,  but 
the  powers  of  imagination  he  revealed  in  his 
talk  should  have  secured  his  reputation  in 
print.  I  have  rarely  listened  to  anybody  so 
fluent,  I  could  not  have  got  a  word  in  had  I 
wanted  to.  It  never  seemed  to  occur  to  him 
that  I  might  not  be  as  bent  upon  listening  to 
his  story  as  he  upon  telling  it.  He  made  it 
quite  a  personal  matter  between  us.  I  would 
understand,  he  said,  and  the  inference  was  that 
nobody  else  could,  the  bitterness  of  his  awak- 
ening when  the  talented  woman  whom  he  had 
revered  as  the  kindliest  of  her  sex  betrayed 
herself  to  him  as  the  most  cruel.  For  long,  in 
her  Florentine  villa,  he  had  been  Secretary  to 
Ouida,  whom  he  found  so  charming  and  con- 
siderate that  he  could  only  marvel  at  all  the 
gossip  about  her  whims  and  fancies.  Then,  one 
morning,  he  was  writing  a  letter  at  her  dicta- 
tion and  by  oversight  he  spelt  disappointment 
with  one  p,  a  trifling  error  which,  as  I  knew, 
any  gentleman  or  scholar  was  liable  to.  She 

262 


Our  Beggars 

flew  into  a  rage,  she  turned  him  out  of  the 
villa  without  hearing  a  word,  she  pursued  him 
into  the  garden,  she  set  her  dogs  —  colossal 
staghounds  —  on  him,  he  had  to  run  for  his 
life,  had  even  to  vault  over  the  garden  gate, 
I  could  picture  to  myself  with  what  disas- 
trous consequences  to  his  coat  and  trousers. 
And  she  was  so  vindictive  that  she  would 
neither  send  him  his  clothes  nor  pay  him  a 
penny  she  owed  him.  He  had  too  fine  a  sense 
of  gallantry  to  go  to  law  with  a  lady,  he  dared 
not  remain  in  Florence  where  the  report  was 
that  he  went  in  danger  of  his  life.  There  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  return  to  England,  and 
—  well  —  here  he  was,  with  a  new  outfit  to 
buy  before  he  could  accept  the  admirable 
position  offered  to  him,  for  he  had  not  to  as- 
sure me  that  a  man  of  his  competency  was 
everywhere  in  demand;  it  was  very  awkward, 
and  —  in  short  —  he  looked  to  me  as  a  fellow 
author  to  tide  him  over  the  awkwardness.  I 
can  laugh  now  at  my  absurd  embarrassment 
when  finally  he  came  to  a  full  stop.  I  did  not 
have  to  wait  for  his  exposure  in  the  next  num- 
ber of  "The  Author"  to  realize  that  he  was 
263 


Our  House 

"an  unscrupulous  impostor."  But  I  was  too 
shy  to  call  him  one  to  his  face,  and  I  actually 
murmured  polite  concern  and  "advanced"  I 
have  forgotten  what,  to  be  rid  of  him. 

Out  of  compliment  to  J.,  our  Beggars  pose 
as  artists  no  less  frequently  than  as  authors. 
If  the  artist  himself,  when  accident  or  bad 
luck  has  got  him  into  a  tight  place,  likes  best 
to  come  to  his  fellow  artist  to  get  him  out  of 
it,  he  is  the  first  to  pay  his  debts  and  the  first 
debt  he  pays  is  to  the  artist  who  saw  him 
through.  But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  our 
Beggars  who  have  chosen  art  as  an  unemploy- 
ment and  with  whom  accident  or  bad  luck  is 
deliberately  chronic.  They  look  upon  art  as  a 
gilt-edged  investment  that  should  bring  them 
in  a  dividend,  however  remote  their  connection 
with  it.  According  to  them,  an  artist  entitles 
all  his  family,  even  to  the  second  and  third 
generation,  to  a  share  in  J.'s  modest  income, 
though  J.  himself  is  not  at  all  of  their  manner 
of  thinking.  Grandsons  of  famous  wood-en- 
gravers, nephews  of  editors  of  illustrated  pa- 
pers, cousins  of  publishers  of  popular  maga- 
zines, fathers  of  painters,  brothers,  sons,  and 

264 


Our  Beggars 

uncles  of  every  sort  of  artist,  even  sisters, 
daughters,  and  aunts  who  take  advantage  of 
their  talent  for  pathos  and  "crocodile  wisdom 
of  shedding  tears  when  they  should  devour," 
—  all  have  sought  to  impress  upon  him  that 
the  sole  reason  for  their  existence  is  to  live  at 
his  expense.  He  may  suggest  meekly  that  he 
subscribes  to  benevolent  institutions  and  so- 
cieties founded  for  the  relief  of  artists  and 
artists'  families  in  just  their  difficulties.  They 
are  glib  in  excuses  for  making  their  applica- 
tion to  him  instead,  and  they  evidently  think 
he  ought  to  be  grateful  to  them  for  putting 
him  in  the  way  of  enjoying  the  blessing  pro- 
mised to  those  who  give. 

The  most  ambitious  reckon  their  needs  on 
a  princely  scale,  as  if  determined  to  beg,  when 
they  have  to,  with  all  their  might.  One  artist, 
distinguished  in  his  youth,  writes  to  J.,  from 
the  Cafe  Royal  where,  in  his  old  age,  he  makes 
a  habit  of  dining  and  finding  himself  towards 
midnight  ridiculously  without  a  penny  in  his 
pocket,  an  emergency  in  which  a  five-pound 
note  by  return  of  messenger  will  oblige.  An- 
other, whose  business  hours  are  as  late,  comes 
265 


Our  House 

in  person  for  a  "fiver,"  his  last  train  to  his 
suburban  home  being  on  the  point  of  start- 
ing and  he  as  ridiculously  penniless,  except  for 
a  cheque  for  a  hundred  pounds  just  received 
from  a  publisher,  which  he  cannot  change  at 
that  time  of  night.  The  more  humble  have  so 
much  less  lavish  a  standard  that  half  a  crown 
will  meet  their  liabilities,  or  else  a  sum  left 
to  the  generosity  of  the  giver.  A  youth,  fre- 
quent in  his  visits,  never  aspires  above  the 
fare  of  a  hansom  waiting  below,  while  a  painter 
of  mature  years  appears  only  on  occasions 
of  public  rejoicing  or  mourning  when  there  is 
no  telling  to  what  extent  emotion  may  loosen 
the  purse  strings.  Some  bring  their  pictures  as 
security,  or  the  pictures  of  famous  ancestors 
who  have  become  bewilderingly  prolific  since 
their  death;  some  plead  for  their  work  to  be 
taken  out  of  pawn;  some  want  to  pose  in  a  few 
days,  and  these  J.  recommends  to  the  Keeper 
of  the  Royal  Academy;  and  some  are  so  subtle 
in  their  argument  that  we  fail  to  follow  it.  We 
are  still  wondering  what  could  have  been  the 
motive  of  the  excited  little  man  who  burst  in 
upon  J.  a  few  days  ago  with  a  breathless  in- 
266 


Our  Beggars 

DO 

qulry  as  to  how  much  he  charged  for  painting 
polo  ponies  for  officers,  and  who  bolted  as  pre- 
cipitately when  J.  said  that  he  knew  nothing 
about  polo,  and  had  never  painted  a  pony  in 
his  life.  But  for  sheer  irrelevance  none  has 
surpassed  the  American  whom,  in  J.'s  absence, 
I  was  called  upon  to  interview,  and  who  as- 
sured me  that,  having  begun  life  as  an  artist 
and  later  turned  model,  he  had  tramped  all 
the  way  from  New  Orleans  to  New  York  and 
then  worked  his  way  over  on  a  cattleship  to 
London  with  no  other  object  in  view  than  to 
sit  to  J.  If  I  regret  that  my  countrymen  in 
England  borrow  the  trick  of  begging  from  the 
native,  it  is  some  satisfaction  to  have  them 
excel  in  it.  When  I  represented  to  the  model 
from  New  Orleans  that  J.,  as  far  as  I  could  see, 
would  have  no  use  for  him,  he  was  quite  ready 
to  take  a  shilling  in  place  of  the  sitting,  and 
when  I  would  not  give  him  a  shilling,  he  de- 
clared himself  repaid  by  his  pleasant  chat  with 
a  compatriot.  He  must  have  thought  better 
of  it  afterwards  and  decided  that  something 
more  substantial  was  owing  to  him,  for  three 
weeks  later  his  visit  was  followed  by  a  letter:  — 

267 


Our  House 

MADAM,  —  I  know  how  sorry  you  will  be 
to  hear  that  since  my  little  talk  with  you  I 
have  been  dangerously  sick  in  a  hospital.  The 
doctors  have  now  discharged  me,  but  they  say 
I  must  do  no  work  of  any  kind  for  ten  days, 
though  an  artist  is  waiting  for  me  to  sit  to 
him  for  an  important  picture.  They  advise  me 
to  strengthen  myself  with  nourishing  food  in 
the  meanwhile.  Will  you  therefore  please 
send  me 

3  dozen  new-laid  eggs 

I  Ib.  of  fresh  butter 

i  Ib.  of  coffee 

1  Ib.  of  tea 

2  Ibs.  of  sugar 

i  dozen  of  oranges. 
Thanking  you  in  advance, 
I  am,  Madam, 

Gratefully  yours. 

There  are  periods  when  I  am  convinced  that 
not  art,  not  literature,  but  journalism  is  the 
most  impecunious  of  the  professions,  and  that 
all  Fleet  Street,  to  which  the  Quarter  is  fairly 
convenient,  must  be  out  of  work.  It  is  aston- 

268 


Our  Beggars 

ishing  how  often  it  depends  upon  our  financial 
backing  to  get  into  work  again,  though  de- 
pendence could  not  be  more  misplaced,  for  a 
certain  little  transaction  with  a  guileless  youth 
whose  future  hung  on  a  journey  to  Russia  has 
given  us  all  the  experience  of  the  kind,  or  a 
great  deal  more  than  we  want.  As  astonishing 
is  the  number  of  journalists  who  cherish  as 
their  happiest  recollections  the  years  they  were 
with  us  on  the  staff  of  London,  New  York,  or 
Philadelphia  papers  for  which  we  never  wrote 
a  line.  One  even  grew  sentimental  over  the 
"good  old  days"  on  the  Philadelphia  "Public 
Ledger"  with  J.'s  father  who,  to  our  knowledge, 
passed  his  life  without  as  much  as  seeing  the 
inside  of  a  newspaper  office.  But  the  journal- 
ist persisted  until  J.  vowed  that  he  never  had 
a  father,  that  he  never  was  in  Philadelphia, 
that  he  never  heard  of  the  "Ledger"  :  then 
the  poor  man  fled.  Astonishing,  too,  is  the 
count  they  keep  of  the  seasons.  Disaster  is 
most  apt  to  overtake  them  at  those  holiday 
times  when  Dickens  has  taught  that  hearts 
are  tender  and  purses  overflow.  For  them 
Christmas  spells  catastrophe,  and  it  has  ceased 

269 


Our  House 

to  be  a  surprise  to  hear  their  ring  on  Christ- 
mas Eve.  As  a  rule,  a  shilling  will  avert  the 
catastrophe  and  enable  them  to  exchange  the 
cold  streets  for  a  warm  fireside,  hunger  for 
feasting,  though  I  recall  a  reporter  for  whom 
it  could  not  be  done  under  a  ticket  to  Paris. 
The  Paris  edition  of  the  "New  York  Herald" 
had  engaged  him  on  condition  that  he  was  in  the 
office  not  later  than  Christmas  morning.  He 
was  ready  to  start,  but  —  there  was  the  ticket, 
and,  for  no  particular  reason  except  that  it 
was  Christmas  Eve,  J.  was  to  have  the  plea- 
sure of  paying  for  it. 

"  Why  not  apply  to  the  '  New  York  Herald' 
office  here?"  J.  asked. 

The  reporter  beamed:  "My  dear  sir,  the 
very  thing,  the  very  thing.  Why  did  n't  I  think 
of  it  before  ?  I  will  go  at  once.  Thank  you,  sir, 
thank  you  ! " 

He  was  back  in  an  hour,  radiant,  the  ticket 
in  his  hand,  but  held  tight,  so  that  just  one  end 
showed,  as  if  he  was  afraid  of  losing  it.  "You 
see,  sir,  it  was  the  right  tip,  but  I  must  have 
some  coffee  at  Dieppe,  and  I  have  n't  one  penny 
over.  I  can  manage  with  a  shilling,  sir,  and 
270 


Our  Beggars 

if  you  would  be  so  kind  a  couple  more  for  a 
cab  in  Paris." 

He  did  not  know  his  man.  J.  would  go,  or 
rather  he  has  gone,  without  breakfast  or  dinner 
and  any  distance  on  foot  when  work  was  at 
stake.  But  the  reporter  was  so  startled  by  the 
suggestion  of  such  hardships  for  himself  that 
he  dropped  the  ticket  on  the  floor,  and  before 
he  could  snatch  it  up  again  J.  had  seen  that 
it  was  good  not  for  Paris,  but.  for  a  'bus  in  the 
Strand. 

I  wish  I  had  been  half  as  stern  with  the  as- 
sistant editor  from  Philadelphia.  I  knew  him 
for  what  he  was  the  minute  he  came  into  the 
room.  He  was  decently,  even  jauntily  dressed, 
but  there  hung  about  him  the  smell  of  stale 
cigars  and  whiskey,  which  always  hangs  about 
those  of  our  Beggars  who  do  not  fill  our  cham- 
bers with  the  sicklier  smell  of  drugs.  Nor  did 
I  think  much  of  his  story.  He  related  it  at 
length  with  elegance  of  manner  and  speech, 
but  it  was  a  poor  one,  inviting  doubt.  The  card 
he  played  was  the  one  he  sent  in  with  a  well- 
known  Philadelphia  name  on  it,  and  he  strength- 
ened the  effect  by  his  talk  of  the  artist  with 

271 


Our  House 

whom  he  once  shared  rooms  at  Eleventh 
and  Spruce  streets.  That  "  fetched  me."  For 
Eleventh  and  Spruce  streets  must  ever  mean 
for  me  the  red  brick  house  with  the  white 
marble  steps  and  green  shutters,  the  pleasant 
garden  opposite  full  of  trees  green  and  shady 
on  hot  summer  days,  the  leisurely  horse-cars 
jingling  slowly  by,  —  the  house  that  is  so  big 
in  all  the  memories  of  my  childhood  and  youth. 
If  I  can  help  it,  nobody  shall  ever  know  what 
his  having  lived  in  its  neighbourhood  cost  me. 
I  was  foolish,  no  doubt,  but  I  gave  with  my 
eyes  open:  sentiment  sometimes  is  not  too 
dearly  bought  at  the  price  of  a  little  folly. 

Were  Covent  Garden  not  within  such  easy 
reach  of  the  Quarter  I  could  scarcely  account 
for  the  trust  which  the  needy  musician  places 
in  us.  Certainly  it  is  because  of  no  effort 
or  encouragement  on  our  side.  We  have 
small  connection  with  the  musical  world,  and 
whether  because  of  the  size  of  the  singers  or 
the  commercial  atmosphere  at  Baireuth,  J. 
since  we  heard  "Parsifal"  there  will  not  be 
induced  to  go  to  the  opera  anywhere,  or  to  ven- 
ture upon  a  concert.  Under  the  circumstances, 

272 


Our  Beggars 

the  most  imaginative  musician  could  not 
make  believe  in  a  professional  bond  between  us, 
though  there  is  nothing  to  shake  his  faith  in 
the  kinship  of  all  the  arts  and,  therefore,  in 
our  readiness  to  support  the  stray  tenor  or 
violinist  who  cannot  support  himself.  But 
imagination,  anyway,  is  not  his  strong  point. 
He  seldom  displays  the  richness  of  fancy  of 
our  other  Beggars,  and  I  can  recall  only  one, 
a  pianist  who  had  grasped  the  possibilities  of 
"Who  's  Who."  His  use  of  it,  however,  went 
far  to  atone  for  the  neglect  of  the  rest.  With  its 
aid  he  had  discovered  not  only  that  we  were 
Philadelphians,  but  that  Mr.  David  Bispham 
was  also,  and  he  had  to  let  off  his  enthusiasm 
over  Philadelphia  and  "dear  old  Dave  Bisp- 
ham" before  he  got  down  to  business.  There 
his  originality  gave  out.  His  was  the  same  old 
story  of  a  run  of  misfortunes  and  disappoint- 
ments—  "it  could  never  have  happened  if 
dear  old  Dave  Bispham  had  been  in  town"  — 
and  the  climax  was  the  dying  wife  for  whom 
our  sympathy  has  been  asked  too  often  for  a 
particle  to  be  left.  The  only  difference  was 
that  she  took  rather  longer  in  dying  than  usual, 

273 


Our  House 

and  the  pianist  returned  to  report  her  removal 
from  the  shelter  of  a  friend's  house  to  the  hos- 
pital, from  the  hospital  to  lodgings,  and  from 
the  lodgings  he  threatened  us  with  the  spectacle 
of  her  drawing  her  last  breath  in  the  gutter 
if  we  did  not,  then  and  there,  pay  his  landlady 
and  his  doctor  and  his  friend  to  whom  he  was 
deeply  in  debt.  We  were  spared  her  death, 
probably  because  by  that  time  the  pianist 
saw  the  wisdom  of  carrying  the  story  of  her 
sufferings  to  more  responsive  ears,  though  it 
is  not  likely  that  he  met  with  much  success 
anywhere.  He  was  too  well  dressed  for  the 
part.  With  his  brand-new  frock  coat  and  im- 
maculate silk  hat,  with  his  gold-mounted  cane 
and  Suede  gloves,  he  was  better  equipped  for 
the  jeune  premier  warbling  of  love,  than  for 
the  grief-stricken  husband  watching  in  penni- 
less desolation  by  the  bedside  of  a  dying  wife. 
The  Quarter  is  also  within  an  easy  stroll  for 
actors  who,  when  their  hard  times  come,  show 
an  unwarranted  confidence  in  us,  though  J., 
if  anything,  disdains  the  theatre  more  than  the 
opera.  They  take  advantage  of  their  training 
and  bring  the  artist's  zeal  to  the  role  of  Beg- 

274 


Our  Beggars 

gars,  but  I  have  known  them  to  be  shocked 
back  suddenly  into  their  natural  selves  by  J.'s 
blunt  refusal  to  hear  them  out.  One,  giving 
the  aristocratic  name  of  Mr.  Vivian  Stewart 
and  further  describing  himself  on  his  card  as 
"Lead  Character  late  of  the  Lyceum,"  was  so 
dismayed  when  J.  cut  his  lines  short  with  a 
shilling  that  he  lost  his  cue  entirely  and  whined, 
"Don't  you  think,  sir,  you  could  make  it  eigh- 
teenpence?"  The  most  accomplished  in  the  role 
was  a  young  actor  from  York.  He  had  the  intel- 
ligence to  suspect  that  the  profession  does  not 
monopolize  the  interest  of  all  the  world  and  to 
pretend  that  it  did  not  monopolize  his  own.  He 
therefore  appeared  in  the  double  part  of  cyclist 
and  actor.  He  reminded  J.  of  a  cycling  dinner 
at  York  several  winters  before  at  which  both 
were  present.  J.  remembered  the  dinner,  but  not 
the  cyclist,  who  was  not  a  bit  put  out  but  de- 
claimed upon  "the  freemasonry  of  the  wheel," 
and  anticipated  J.'s  joy  as  fellow  sportsman 
in  hearing  of  the  new  engagement  just  offered 
to  him.  It  would  be  the  making  of  him  and 
his  reputation,  but  —  no  bad  luck  has  ever 
yet  robbed  our  Beggars  of  that  useful  preposi- 
275 


Our  House 

tion  —  but,  it  depended  upon  his  leaving  Lon- 
don within  an  hour,  and  the  usual  events  over 
which  our  Beggars  never  have  control,  found 
him  with  ten  shillings  less  than  his  railway  fare. 
A  loan  at  this  critical  point  would  save  his 
career,  and  to-morrow  the  money  would  be 
returned.  His  visit  dates  back  to  the  early 
period,  when  our  hospitality  had  not  outgrown 
the  barbarous  stage,  and  his  career  was  saved, 
temporarily.  After  six  months'  silence,  the 
actor  reappeared.  With  his  first  word  of  greet- 
ing he  took  a  half  sovereign  from  his  waistcoat 
pocket  and  regretted  his  delay  in  paying  it 
back.  But,  in  the  mean  while,  much  had  hap- 
pened. He  had  lost  his  promising  engagement; 
he  had  found  a  wife  and  was  on  the  point  of 
losing  her,  for  she  was  another  of  the  many 
wives  at  death's  door;  he  had  found  a  more 
promising  engagement  and  was  on  the  point 
of  losing  that  too,  for  if  he  did  not  settle  his 
landlady's  bill  before  the  afternoon  had  passed 
she  would  seize  his  possessions,  stage  proper- 
ties and  all,  and  again  events  beyond  his  con- 
trol had  emptied  his  pockets.  He  would  re- 
turn the  ten  shillings,  but  we  must  now  lend 

276 


Our  Beggars 

him  a  sovereign.  And  he  was  not  merely  sur- 
prised but  deeply  hurt  because  we  would  not, 
and  he  stayed  to  argue  it  out  that  if  his  wife 
died,  and  his  landlady  kept  his  possessions, 
and  the  engagement  was  broken,  and  his  ca- 
reer was  at  an  end,  the  guilt  would  be  ours,  — 
it  was  in  our  power  to  make  him  or  to  mar  him. 
He  was  really  rather  good  at  denunciation. 
On  this  occasion  it  was  wasted.  He  did  not 
get  the  sovereign,  but  then  neither  did  we 
get  the  half  sovereign  which  went  back  into 
his  waistcoat  pocket  at  the  end  of  his  visit  and 
disappeared  with  him,  this  time  apparently 
forever. 

We  are  scarcely  in  as  great  favour  as  we 
were  with  our  Beggars.  Their  courage  now  is 
apt  to  ooze  from  them  at  our  door,  which  is 
no  longer  held  by  a  British  servant,  but  by 
Augustine,  whom  tradition  has  not  taught  to 
respect  the  top  hat  and  frock  coat,  and  be- 
fore whom  even  the  prosperous  quail.  She 
recognizes  the  Beggar  at  a  glance,  for  that 
glance  goes  at  once  to  his  shoes,  she  having 
found  out,  unaided  by  Thackeray,  that  pov- 
erty, beginning  to  take  possession  of  a  man, 

277 


Our  House 

attacks  his  extremities  first.  She  has  never 
been  mistaken  except  when,  in  the  dusk  of 
a  winter  evening,  she  shut  one  of  our  old 
friends  out  on  the  stairs  because  she  had  looked 
at  his  hat  instead  of  his  shoes  and  mistrusted 
the  angle  at  which  it  was  pulled  down  over 
his  eyes.  This  blunder,  for  an  interval,  weak- 
ened her  reliance  upon  her  own  judgment,  but 
she  has  gradually  recovered  her  confidence,  and 
only  the  Beggars  whose  courage  is  screwed  to 
the  sticking-point,  and  who  sharpen  their  wits, 
succeed  in  the  skirmish  to  get  past  her.  When 
they  do  get  past  it  is  not  of  much  use.  The 
entertainment  they  gave  us  is  of  a  kind  that 
palls  with  repetition.  An  inclination  to  lis- 
ten to  their  stories,  to  save  their  careers,  to 
set  them  up  on  their  feet,  could  survive  their 
persecutions  in  none  but  the  epicure  in  char- 
ity, which  we  are  not.  The  obligation  of  po- 
liteness to  Beggars  under  my  roof  weighs  more 
lightly  on  my  shoulders  with  their  every  visit, 
while  J.,  as  the  result  of  long  experience  and 
to  save  bother,  has  reduced  his  treatment  of 
them  to  a  system  and  gives  a  shilling  indis- 
criminately to  each  and  all  who  call  to  beg  — 
278 


Our  Beggars 

when  he  happens  to  have  one  himself.  In  vain 
I  assure  him  that  if  his  system  has  the  merit 
of  simplicity,  it  is  shocking  bad  political  econ- 
omy, and  that  every  shilling  given  is  a  shilling 
thrown  away.  In  vain  I  remind  him  that  Au- 
gustine, shadowing  our  Beggars  from  our  cham- 
bers, saw  the  man  who  came  to  us  solely  be- 
cause of  the  "good  old  days"  in  Philadelphia 
stop  and  beg  at  every  other  door  in  the  house; 
that  she  detected  one  of  the  numerous  heart- 
broken husbands  hurrying  back  to  his  dying 
wife  by  way  of  the  first  pub  round  the  cor- 
ner; that  she  caught  the  innocent  defendant 
in  a  lawsuit,  whose  solicitor  was  waiting  down- 
stairs, pounced  upon  by  two  women  instead 
and  well  scolded  for  the  poor  bargain  he  had 
made.  In  vain  I  point  out  that  a  shilling  to  one 
is  an  invitation  to  every  Beggar  on  our  beat, 
for  by  some  wireless  telegraphy  of  their  own 
our  Beggars  always  manage  to  spread  the  news 
when  shillings  are  in  season  at  our  chambers. 
But  J.  is  not  to  be  moved.  He  has  an  argu- 
ment as  simple  as  his  system  with  which  to 
answer  mine.  If,  he  says,  the  Beggar  is  a 
humbug,  a  shilling  can  do  no  great  harm;  if 

279 


Our  House 

the  Beggar  is  genuine,  it  may  pay  for  a  night's 
bed  or  for  the  day's  bread;  and  he  does  not 
care  if  it  is  right  or  wrong  according  to  politi- 
cal economy,  for  he  knows  for  himself  that  the 
Beggar's  story  is  sometimes  true.  The  visits 
of  Beggars  who  once  came  to  us  as  friends  are 
vivid  in  his  memory. 

They  are,  I  admit,  visits  not  soon  forgotten. 
The  chance  Beggar  in  the  street  is  impersonal 
in  his  appeal,  and  yet  he  makes  us  uncomfort- 
able by  his  mere  presence,  symbol  as  he  is  of 
the  huge  and  pitiless  waste  of  life.  Our  laugh 
for  the  bare-faced  impostor  at  our  door  has  a 
sigh  in  it,  for  proficiency  in  his  trade  is  gained 
only  through  suffering  and  degradation.  But 
the  laugh  is  lost  in  the  sigh,  the  discomfort 
becomes  acute  when  the  man  who  begs  a 
few  pence  is  one  at  whose  table  we  once  sat, 
whom  we  once  knew  in  positions  of  authority. 
He  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  symbol  nor  dis- 
posed of  by  generalizations.  Giving  is  always 
an  embarrassing  business,  but  under  these 
conditions  it  fills  us  with  shame,  nor  can  we 
help  it  though  oftener  than  not  we  see  that 
the  shame  is  all  ours.  I  am  miserable  during 
280 


Our  Beggars 

my  interviews  with  the  journalist  whom  we 
met  when  he  was  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  of 
success,  and  who  slipped  to  the  bottom  after 
his  promotion  to  an  important  editorship  and 
his  carelessness  in  allowing  himself  to  be  found, 
on  the  first  night  of  his  installation,  asleep  with 
his  head  and  an  empty  bottle  in  the  waste- 
paper  basket;  but  he  seems  to  be  quite  en- 
joying himself,  which  makes  it  the  more 
tragic,  as,  with  hand  upraised,  he  assures  me 
solemnly  that  J.  is  a  gentleman,  this  proud 
distinction  accorded  by  him  in  return  for  the 
practical  working  of  J.'s  system  in  his  behalf. 
It  is  a  trial  to  receive  the  popular  author  who 
won  his  popularity  by  persevering  in  the 
"'abits  of  a  clerk,"  so  he  says,  when  he  left 
the  high  office  stool  for  the  comfortable  chair 
in  his  own  study,  and  whose  face  explains  too 
well  what  he  has  made  of  it;  but  it  is  evidently 
a  pleasure  to  him,  and  therefore  the  more 
pitiful  to  me,  when  he  interrupts  my  mornings 
to  expose  the  critics  and  their  iniquity  in  com- 
pelling him  to  come  to  me  for  the  bread  they 
take  out  of  his  mouth.  Worst  of  all  were  the 
visits  of  the  business  man,  —  I  am  glad  I 

281 


Our  House 

can  speak  of  them  in  the  past,  —  though  he 
himself  never  seemed  conscious  of  the  ghastly 
figure  he  made,  for  when  his  visible  business 
vanished  he  had  still  his  wonderful  schemes. 

He  was  a  man  of  wonderful  schemes,  but 
originally  they  led  to  results  as  wonderful. 
When  we  first  knew  him  he  ruled  in  an  office 
in  Bond  Street,  he  had  partners,  he  had  clerks, 
he  had  a  porter  in  livery  at  the  door.  He  em- 
barked upon  daring  adventures  and  brought 
them  off.  He  gave  interesting  commissions, 
and  he  paid  for  them  too,  as  we  learned  to  our 
profit.  He  had  large  ideas  and  a  wide  horizon; 
he  shrank  from  the  cheap  and  popular,  from 
what  the  people  like.  He  was  not  above  tak- 
ing the  advice  of  others  upon  subjects  of  which 
he  was  broad-minded  enough  to  understand 
and  to  acknowledge  his  own  ignorance,  for  he 
spared  himself  no  pains  in  his  determination 
to  secure  the  best.  And  he  was  full  of  go;  that 
was  why  we  liked  him.  I  look  back  to  even- 
ings when  he  came  to  dinner  to  talk  over 
some  new  scheme,  and  when  he  would  sit  on 
and  talk  on  after  his  last  train  —  his  home 
was  in  the  suburbs  —  had  long  gone  and,  as 
282 


Our  Beggars 

he  told  us  afterwards,  he  would  have  to  wait 
in  one  of  the  little  restaurants  near  Fleet 
Street  that  are  open  all  night  for  journalists 
until  it  was  time  to  catch  the  earliest  news- 
paper train.  He  would  drop  in  at  any  odd 
hour  to  discuss  his  latest  enterprise.  We  were 
always  seeing  him,  and  we  were  always  de- 
lighted to  see  him,  enthusiasm  not  being  so 
common  a  virtue  in  the  Briton  that  we  can 
afford  not  to  make  the  most  of  it  when  it  hap- 
pens. We  found  him,  as  a  consequence,  a 
stimulating  companion.  I  cannot  say  exactly 
when  the  change  came;  why  it  came  remains 
a  mystery  to  us  to  this  day.  Probably  it  be- 
gan long  before  we  realized  it.  The  first  symp- 
toms were  a  trick  of  borrowing:  at  the  outset 
such  trivial  things  as  a  daily  paper  to  which 
he  should  have  subscribed,  or  books  which  he 
should  have  bought  for  himself.  Then  it  was 
a  half  crown  here  and  a  half  crown  there,  be- 
cause he  had  not  time  to  go  back  to  the  office 
before  rushing  to  the  station,  or  because  he 
had  not  a  cab  fare  with  him,  or  because  of 
half  a  dozen  other  accidents  as  plausible.  We 
might  not  have  given  a  second  thought  to  all 

283 


Our  House 

this  but  for  the  rapidity  with  which  the  half 
crowns  developed  into  five  shillings,  and  the 
five  into  ten,  and  the  ten  into  a  sovereign  on 
evenings  when  the  cab,  for  which  we  had  to 
take  his  word,  had  been  waiting  during  the 
hours  of  his  stay.  We  could  not  help  our  sus- 
picions, the  more  so  because  that  indefinable 
but  rank  odour  of  drugs,  by  which  our  Beg- 
gars too  frequently  announce  themselves,  grew 
stronger  as  the  amount  of  which  he  was  in 
need  increased.  And  very  soon  he  was  con- 
fiding to  us  the  details  of  a  quarrel  which  de- 
prived him  of  his  partners  and  their  capital. 
Then  the  Bond  Street  office  was  given  up  and 
his  business  was  done  in  some  vague  rooms, 
the  whereabouts  of  which  he  never  disclosed; 
only  too  soon  it  seemed  to  be  done  entirely  in 
the  street.  We  would  meet  him  at  night  slink- 
ing along  the  Strand,  one  of  the  miserable 
shadows  of  humanity  whom  the  darkness  lures 
out  of  the  nameless  holes  and  corners  where 
they  hide  during  the  day.  At  last  came  a 
period  when  he  kept  away  from  our  chambers 
altogether,  sending  his  wife  to  us  instead.  Her 
visits  were  after  dark,  usually  towards  mid- 
284 


Our  Beggars 

night.  She  called  for  all  sorts  of  things,  —  a 
week's  rent,  medicine  from  the  druggist  in  the 
Strand,  Sunday's  dinner,  her  'bus  fare  home, 
once  I  remember  for  an  umbrella.  She  was 
never  without  an  excuse  for  the  emergency  that 
forced  her  to  disturb  us,  and  she  was  no  less 
fine  than  he  in  keeping  up  the  fiction  that  it 
was  an  emergency,  and  that  business  prospered 
though  removed  from  Bond  Street  into  the 
Unknown.  I  think  it  was  after  this  loan  of  an 
umbrella  that  he  again  came  himself,  nomi- 
nally to  return  it  and  incidentally  to  borrow 
something  else.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  several 
months.  It  might  have  been  years  judging 
from  his  appearance,  and  I  wished,  as  I  still 
wish,  I  had  not  seen  him  then.  In  the  Bond 
Street  days  he  had  the  air  of  a  man  who  lived 
well,  and  he  was  correct  in  dress,  "well 
groomed"  as  they  say.  And  now?  His  face 
was  as  colourless  and  emaciated  as  the  faces 
from  which  I  shrink  in  the  "hunger  line"  on 
the  Embankment;  he  wore  a  brown  tweed  suit, 
torn  and  mended  and  torn  again,  with  a  hor- 
rible patch  of  another  colour  on  one  knee  that 
drew  my  eyes  irresistibly  to  it;  his  straw  hat 

285 


Our  House 

was  as  burned  and  battered  as  days  of  tramp- 
ing in  the  sun  and  nights  of  sleeping  in  the 
rain  could  make  it.  He  was  the  least  embar- 
rassed of  the  two.  In  fact,  he  was  not  embar- 
rassed at  all,  but  sat  in  the  chair  where  so 
often  he  had  faced  me  in  irreproachable  frock 
coat  and  spotless  trousers,  and  explained  as  in 
the  old  days  his  wonderful  schemes,  express- 
ing again  the  hope  that  we  would  second  him 
and,  with  him,  again  achieve  success.  He 
might  have  been  a  prince  promising  his  pat- 
ronage. And  all  the  while  I  did  not  know 
which  way  to  look,  so  terrible  was  his  face 
pinched  and  drawn  with  hunger,  so  eloquent 
that  staring  patch  on  his  knee.  That  was 
several  years  ago,  and  it  was  the  last  visit 
either  he  or  his  wife  ever  made  us.  I  cannot 
imagine  that  anything  was  left  to  them  ex- 
cept greater  misery,  deeper  degradation,  and 
—  the  merciful  end,  which  I  hope  came  swiftly. 
It  is  when  I  remember  the  business  man  and 
our  other  friends,  fortunately  few,  who  have 
followed  in  the  same  path  that  I  am  unable 
to  deny  the  force  of  the  argument  by  which 
J.  defends  his  system.  It  may  be  that  all  our 

286 


Our  Beggars 

Beggars  began  life  with  schemes  as  wonderful 
and  ideas  as  large,  that  their  stories  are  as  true, 
that  the  line  between  Tragedy  and  Farce  was 
never  so  fine  drawn  as  when,  stepping  across 
it,  they  plunged  into  the  profession  of  having 
come  down  in  the  world. 


IX 

The  Tenants 


IX 


THE  TENANTS 

IT  is  impossible  to  live  in  chambers  without 
knowing  something  of  the  other  tenants  in 
the  house.  I  know  much  even  of  several  who 
were  centuries  or  generations  before  my  time, 
and  I  could  not  help  it  if  I  wanted  to,  for  the 
London  County  Council  has  lately  set  up  a 
plaque  to  their  memory  on  our  front  wall. 
Not  that  I  want  to  help  it.  I  take  as  much 
pride  in  my  direct  descent  from  Pepys  and 
Etty  as  others  may  in  an  ancestor  on  the  May- 
flower or  with  the  Conqueror,  while  if  it  had 
not  been  for  J.  and  his  interest  in  the  matter 
we  might  not  yet  boast  the  plaque  that  gives 
us  distinction  in  our  shabby  old  street,  though, 
to  do  us  full  justice,  its  list  of  names  should 
be  lengthened  by  at  least  one,  perhaps  the 
most  distinguished. 

I  have  never  understood  why  Bacon  was 
left  out.  Only  the  pedant  would  disown  so 

291 


Our  House 

desirable  a  tenant  for  the  poor  reason  that  the 
house  has  been  rebuilt  since  his  day.  As  it  is, 
Pepys  heads  the  list,  and  we  do  not  pretend 
to  claim  that  the  house  is  exactly  as  it  was 
when  he  lived  in  it.  He  never  saw  our  Adam 
ceilings  and  fireplaces,  we  never  saw  his  row 
of  gables  along  the  River  front  except  in  Cana- 
letto's  drawing  of  the  old  Watergate  which 
our  windows  still  overlook.  However,  except 
for  the  loss  of  the  gables,  the  outside  has 
changed  little,  and  if  the  inside  has  been  re- 
modelled beyond  recognition,  we  make  all  we 
can  of  the  Sixteenth-Century  drain-pipe  dis- 
covered when  the  London  County  Council,  in 
the  early  throes  of  reform,  ordered  our  plumb- 
ing to  be  overhauled.  Their  certified  plumber 
made  so  much  of  it,  feeling  obliged  to  celebrate 
his  discovery  with  beer  and  in  his  hurry  forget- 
ting to  blow  out  the  bit  of  candle  he  left 
amid  the  laths  and  plaster,  that  if  J.  had  not 
arrived  just  in  time  there  would  be  no  house 
now  for  the  plaque  to  decorate.  Pepys,  I  regret 
to  say,  waited  to  move  in  until  after  the  Diary 
ended,  so  that  we  do  not  figure  in  its  pages. 
Nor,  during  his  tenancy,  does  he  figure  any- 

292 


The  Tenants 

where  except  in  the  parish  accounts,  which 
is  more  to  his  credit  than  our  entertainment. 
Etty  was  considerate  and  left  a  record  of 
his  "peace  and  happiness"  in  our  chambers, 
but  I  have  no  proof  that  he  appreciated  their 
beauty.  If  he  liked  to  walk  on  our  leads  in 
the  evening  and  watch  the  sun  set  behind  West- 
minster, he  turned  his  back  on  the  River  at 
the  loveliest  hour  of  all.  It  was  his  habit  as 
Academician  to  work  like  a  student  at  night 
in  the  Royal  Academy  Schools,  then  in  Tra- 
falgar Square,  —  an  admirable  habit,  but  one 
that  took  him  away  just  when  he  should  have 
stayed.  For  when  evening  transformed  the 
Thames  and  its  banks  into  Whistler's  "  Fairy- 
land" he,  like  Paul  Revere,  hung  out  a  lantern 
from  his  studio  window  as  a  signal  for  the 
porter,  with  a  big  stick,  to  come  and  fetch 
him  and  protect  him  from  the  robbers  of  the 
Quarter,  which  had  not  then  the  best  of  rep- 
utations. Three  generations  of  artists  climbed 
our  stairs  to  drink  tea  and  eat  muffins  with 
Etty,  but  they  showed  the  same  ignorance  of 
the  Thames,  all  except  Turner,  who  thought 
there  was  no  finer  scenery  on  any  river  in 

293 


Our  House 

Italy,  and  who  wanted  to  capture  our  windows 
from  Etty  and  make  them  his  own,  but  who, 
possibly  because  he  could  not  get  them,  never 
painted  the  Thames  as  it  was  and  is.  One  other 
painter  did  actually  capture  the  windows  on 
the  first  floor,  and,  in  the  chambers  that  are 
now  the  Professor's,  Stanfield  manufactured 
his  marines,  and  there  too,  they  say,  Hum- 
phry Davy  made  his  safety  lamp. 

We  do  not  depend  solely  upon  the  past  for 
our  famous  tenants.  Some  of  the  names  which 
in  my  time  have  been  gorgeously  gilded  inside 
our  vestibule,  later  generations  may  find  in 
the  list  we  make  a  parade  of  on  our  outer  wall. 
For  a  while,  in  the  chambers  just  below  ours, 
we  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  Mr. 
Edmund  Gosse  was  carrying  on  for  us  the 
traditions  of  Bacon  and  Pepys.  Then  we  have 
had  a  Novelist  or  two,  whose  greatness  I  shrink 
from  putting  to  the  test  by  reading  their  novels, 
and  also  one  or  more  Actors,  but  fame  fades 
from  the  mummer  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
footlights.  We  still  have  the  Architect  who,  if 
the  tenants  were  taken  at  his  valuation,  would, 
I  fancy,  head  our  new  list. 

294 


The  Tenants 

He  is  not  only  an  architect  but,  like  Etty, 
-  like  J.  for  that  matter,  —  an  Academician. 
He  carries  off  the  dignity  with  great  stateliness, 
conscious  of  the  vast  gulf  fixed  between  him 
and  tenants  with  no  initials  after  their  name. 
Moreover,  he  belongs  to  that  extraordinary 
generation  of  now  elderly  Academicians  who 
were  apparently  chosen  for  their  good  looks, 
as  Frederick's  soldiers  were  for  their  size.  The 
stoop  that  has  come  to  his  shoulder  with  years 
but  adds  to  the  impressiveness  of  his  carriage. 
His  air  of  superiority  is  a  continual  reminder 
of  his  condescension  in  having  his  office  under 
our  modest  roof.  His  "Aoh,  good-mornin', " 
as  he  passes,  is  a  kindness,  a  few  words  from 
him  a  favour  rarely  granted,  and  there  is  no 
insolent  familiar  in  the  house  who  would  dare 
approach  him.  Royalty,  Archbishops,  Uni- 
versity dignitaries  are  his  clients,  and  it  would 
seem  presumption  for  the  mere  untitled  to 
approach  him  with  a  commission.  His  office  is 
run  on  dignified  lines  in  keeping  with  the  ex- 
alted sphere  in  which  he  practises.  A  parson 
of  the  Church  of  England  is  his  chief  assistant. 
A  notice  on  his  front  door  warns  the  unwary 

295 


Our  House 

that  "No  Commercial  Travellers  need  Apply," 
and  implies  that  others  had  better  not. 

William  Penn  is  probably  the  only  creature 
in  the  house  who  ever  had  the  courage  to  enter 
the  Academic  precincts  unbidden.  William 
was  a  cat  of  infinite  humour,  and  one  of  his 
favourite  jests  was  to  dash  out  of  our  chambers 
and  down  the  stairs  whenever  he  had  a  chance; 
not  because  he  wanted  to  escape,  —  he  did 
not,  for  he  loved  his  family  as  he  should, — 
but  because  he  knew  that  one  or  all  of  us  would 
dash  after  him.  If  he  was  not  caught  in  time 
he  added  to  the  jest  by  pushing  through 
the  Academician's  open  door  and  hiding  some- 
where under  the  Academic  nose,  and  I  am  cer- 
tain that  nobody  had  a  keener  sense  of  the 
audacity  of  it  than  William  himself.  More 
than  once  a  young  assistant,  trying  to  repress 
a  grin  and  to  look  as  serious  as  if  he  were  hand- 
ing us  a  design  for  a  Deanery,  restored  Wil- 
liam to  his  family;  and  once,  on  a  famous 
occasion  when,  already  late,  we  were  starting 
for  the  Law  Courts  and  the  Witness-box,  the 
Architect  relaxed  so  far  as  to  pull  William  out 
from  among  the  Academic  drawing-boards  and 

296 


The  Tenants 

to  smile  as  he  presented  him  to  J.  who  was 
following  in  pursuit.  Even  Jove  sometimes  un- 
bends, but  when  Jove  is  a  near  neighbour  it  is 
wiser  not  to  presume  upon  his  unbending,  and 
we  have  never  given  the  Architect  reason  to 
regret  his  moment  of  weakness. 

Whatever  the  Architect  thinks  of  himself, 
the^ other  tenants  think  more  of  Mr.  Square, 
whose  front  door  faces  ours  on  the  Third  Floor. 
Mr.  Square  is  under  no  necessity  of  assuming 
an  air  of  superiority,  so  patent  to  everybody 
in  the  house  is  his  right  to  it.  If  anything,  he 
shrinks  from  asserting  himself.  He  had  been 
in  his  chambers  a  year,  coming  a  few  months 
"after  the  fire,"  before  I  knew  him  by  sight, 
though  by  reputation  he  is  known  to  everybody 
from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  Not 
only  is  there  excitement  in  our  house  when 
the  police  officer  appears  on  our  staircase  with 
a  warrant  for  his  arrest  for  murder,  but  the 
United  Kingdom  thrills  and  waits  with  us  for 
the  afternoon's  Police  Report.  In  the  neigh- 
bourhood I  am  treated  with  almost  as  much 
respect  as  when  I  played  a  leading  part  in 
the  Law  Courts  myself.  The  milkman  and  the 

297 


Our  House 

postman  stop  me  in  the  street,  the  little  fruit- 
erer round  the  corner  and  the  young  ladies  at 
the  Temple  of  Pomona  in  the  Strand  detain 
me  in  giving  me  my  change  as  if  I  were  an 
accessory  to  the  crime.  What  if  the  murder  is 
only  technical,  Mr.  Square's  arrest  a  matter 
of  form,  his  discharge  immediate?  The  glory 
is  in  his  position  which  makes  the  technical 
murder  an  achievement  to  be  envied  by  every 
tine-born  Briton.  For  he  is  Referee  at  the 
Imperial  Boxing  Club,  and  therefore  the  most 
important  person  in  the  Empire,  except,  per- 
haps, the  winning  jockey  at  the  Derby  or  the 
Captain  of  the  winning  Football  Team.  The 
Prime  Minister,  Royalty  itself,  would  not  shed 
a  brighter  lustre  on  our  ancient  house,  and  there 
could  be  no  event  of  greater  interest  than  the 
fatal  "accident"  in  the  ring  for  which  Mr. 
Square  has  been  so  many  times  held  techni- 
cally responsible. 

In  his  private  capacity  Mr.  Square  strikes 
me  as  in  no  way  remarkable.  He  is  a  medium- 
sized  man  with  sandy  hair  and  moustache,  as 
like  as  two  peas  to  the  other  men  of  medium 
height  with  sandy  hair  and  moustache  who 

298 


The  Tenants 

are  met  by  the  thousand  in  the  Strand.  He 
shares  his  chambers  with  Mr.  Savage,  who  is 
something  in  the  Bankruptcy  Court.  Both  are 
retiring  and  modest,  they  never  obtrude  them- 
selves, and  either  their  domestic  life  is  quiet 
beyond  reproach,  or  else  the  old  builders  had 
the  secret  of  soundless  walls,  for  no  sound  from 
their  chambers  disturbs  us.  With  them  we 
have  not  so  much  as  the  undesirable  intimacy 
that  comes  from  mutual  complaint,  and  such 
is  their  amiability  that  William,  in  his  most 
outrageous  intrusions,  never  roused  from  them 
a  remonstrance. 

I  am  forced  to  admit  that  William  was  at 
times  ill-advised  in  the  hours  and  places  he 
chose  for  his  adventures.  He  often  beguiled 
me  at  midnight  upon  the  leads  that  he  might 
enjoy  my  vain  endeavours  to  entice  him  home 
with  the  furry  monkey  tied  to  the  end  of  a 
string,  which  during  the  day  never  failed  to 
bring  him  captive  to  my  feet.  By  his  mysteri- 
ous disappearances  he  often  drove  J.,  whose 
heart  is  tender  and  who  adored  him,  out  of  his 
bed  at  unseemly  hours  and  down  into  the 
street  where,  in  pyjamas  and  slippers,  and 

299 


Our  House 

the  door  banged  to  behind  him,  he  became 
an  object  of  suspicion.  On  one  of  these  occa- 
sions, a  policeman  materializing  suddenly  from 
nowhere  and  turning  a  bull's-eye  on  him,  — 

"Have  you  seen  a  cat  about?"  J.  asked. 

"Seen  a  cat?  OiVe  seen  millions  on  'em," 
said  the  policeman.  "Wot  sort  o*  cat?"  he 
added. 

"A  common  tabby  cat,"  said  J. 

"Look  'ere,"  said  the  policeman,  "where 
do  you  live  any'ow?" 

"Here,"  said  J.,  who  had  retained  his  pre- 
sence of  mind  with  his  latch-key. 

"Aoh,  Oi  begs  your  parding,  sir,"  said  the 
policeman.  "Oi  did  n't  see  you,  sir,  in  the 
dim  light,  sir,  but  you  know,  sir,  there's 
billions  o'  tabby  cats  about  'ere  of  a  night, 
sir.  But  if  Oi  find  yours,  sir,  Oi'll  fetch  'im 
'ome  to  you,  sir.  S'noight,  sir.  Thank  e* 


sir." 


When  the  kitchen  door  was  opened  the 
next  morning,  William  was  discovered  in- 
nocently curled  up  in  his  blanket.  And  yet, 
when  he  again  disappeared  at  bedtime  a  week 
or  two  later,  J.  was  again  up  before  daybreak, 

300 


The  Tenants 

sure  that  he  was  on  the  doorstep  breaking 
his  heart  because  he  could  not  get  in.  This 
time  I  followed  into  our  little  hall,  and  Au- 
gustine after  me.  She  was  not  then  as  used 
to  our  ways  as  she  is  now,  and  I  still  remember 
her  sleepy  bewilderment  when  she  looked  at 
J.,  who  had  varied  his  costume  for  the  search 
by  putting  on  knickerbockers  and  long  stock- 
ings, and  her  appeal  to  me:  "Mais  pour- 
quoi  en  bicydette?"  Why  indeed?  But  there 
was  no  time  for  explanation.  We  were  inter- 
rupted by  an  angry  but  welcome  wail  from  be- 
hind the  opposite  door,  and  we  understood  that 
William  was  holding  us  responsible  for  having 
got  himself  locked  up  in  Mr.  Square's  cham- 
bers. We  had  to  wake  up  Mr.  Square's  old 
servant  before  he  could  be  released,  but  it  was 
not  until  the  next  morning  that  the  full  extent 
of  his  iniquity  was  revealed.  A  brand-new, 
pale-pink  silk  quilt  on  Mr.  Square's  bed  having 
appealed  to  him  as  more  luxurious  than  his 
own  blanket,  he  had  profited  by  Mr.  Square's 
absence  to  spend  half  the  night  on  it,  leaving  be- 
hind him  a  faint  impression  of  his  dear  grimy 
little  body.  Even  then,  Mr.  Square  remained 

301 


Our  House 

as  magnanimously  silent  as  if  he  shared  our 
love  for  William  and  pride  in  his  performances. 

All  we  know  of  Mr.  Square  and  Mr.  Savage, 
in  addition  to  their  fame  and  modesty,  we 
have  learned  from  their  old  man,  Tom.  He  is 
a  sailor  by  profession,  and  for  long  steward  on 
Mr.  Savage's  yacht.  He  clings  to  his  uniform 
in  town,  and  when  we  see  him  pottering  about 
in  his  blue  reefer  and  brass  buttons,  Mr. 
Savage's  little  top  floor  that  adjoins  ours  and 
opens  out  on  the  leads  we  share  between  us 
looks  more  than  ever  like  a  ship's  quarter- 
deck. He  is  sociable  by  nature,  and  overflows 
with  kindliness  for  everybody.  He  is  always 
smiling,  whatever  he  may  be  doing  or  wherever 
I  may  meet  him,  and  he  has  a  child's  fondness 
for  sweet  things.  He  is  never  without  a  lemon- 
drop  in  his  mouth,  and  he  keeps  his  pockets 
full  of  candy.  As  often  as  the  opportunity  pre- 
sents itself,  he  presses  handfuls  upon  Augus- 
tine, whom  he  and  his  wife  ceremoniously  call 
"Madam,"  and  to  whom  he  confides  the  secrets 
of  the  household. 

It  is  through  him,  by  way  of  Augustine, 
that  we  follow  the  movements  of  the  yacht, 

302 


The  Tenants 

and  know  what  "his  gentlemen"  have  for 
dinner  and  how  many  people  come  to  see  them. 
At  times  I  have  feared  that  his  confidences 
to  Augustine  and  the  tenderness  of  his  atten- 
tions were  too  marked,  and  that  his  old  wife, 
who  is  less  liberal  with  her  smiles,  disapproved. 
Over  the  grille  that  separates  our  leads  from 
his,  he  gossips  by  the  hour  with  Augustine, 
when  she  lets  him,  and  once  or  twice,  meeting 
her  in  the  street,  he  has  gallantly  invited  her 
into  a  near  public  to  "Jave  a  drink,"  an  invi- 
tation which  she,  with  French  scorn  for  the 
British  substitute  of  the  cafe,  would  disdain 
to  accept.  To  other  tributes  of  his  affection, 
however,  she  does  not  object.  On  summer 
evenings  he  sometimes  lays  a  plate  of  salad 
or  stewed  fruit  at  our  door,  rings,  runs,  and 
then  from  out  a  porthole  of  a  window  by  his 
front  door,  watches  the  effect  when  she  finds 
it,  and  is  horribly  embarrassed  if  I  find  it  by 
mistake.  In  winter  his  offering  takes  the  shape 
of  a  British  mince-pie  or  a  slice  of  plum  pud- 
ding, and,  on  a  foggy  morning  when  she  comes 
home  from  market,  he  will  bring  her  a  glass 
of  port  from  Mr.  Square's  cellar.  He  is  always 

303 


Our  House 

ready  to  lend  her  a  little  oil,  or  milk,  or  sugar, 
in  an  emergency.  Often  he  is  useful  in  a  more 
urgent  crisis.  In  a  sudden  thunder-storm  he  will 
leap  over  the  grille,  shut  our  door  on  the  leads, 
and  make  everything  ship-shape  almost  before 
I  know  it  is  raining.  He  has  even  broken  in  for 
me  when  I  have  come  home  late  without  a 
key,  and  by  my  knocking  and  ringing  have 
roused  up  everybody  in  the  whole  house  ex- 
cept Augustine.  Mrs.  Tom,  much  as  she  may 
disapprove,  is  as  kindly  in  her  own  fashion; 
she  is  quite  learned  in  medicine,  and  knows  an 
old-fashioned  remedy  for  every  ailment.  She 
has  seen  Augustine  triumphantly  through  an 
accident,  she  has  cured  Marcel,  Augustine's 
husband,  of  a  quinsy,  and  she  rather  likes  to 
be  called  upon  for  advice.  She  is  full  of  little 
amiabilities.  She  never  gets  a  supply  of  eggs 
fresh  from  the  country  at  a  reasonable  price 
without  giving  me  a  chance  to  secure  a  dozen 
or  so,  and  when  her  son,  a  fisherman,  comes 
up  to  London,  she  always  reserves  a  portion 
of  his  present  of  fish  for  me.  I  could  not  ask 
for  kindlier  neighbours,  and  they  are  the  only 
friends  I  have  made  in  the  house. 

304 


The  Tenants 

I  was  very  near  having  friendship  thrust 
upon  me,  however,  by  the  First  Floor  Back, 
Mrs.  Eliza  Short.  She  is  an  elderly  lady  of 
generous  proportions  and  flamboyant  tastes, 
"gowned"  elaborately  by  Jay  and  as  elabo- 
rately "wigged"  by  Truefitt.  The  latest  fash- 
ions and  golden  hair  cannot  conceal  the  rav- 
ages of  time,  and,  as  a  result  of  her  labours, 
she  looks  tragically  like  the  unwilling  wreck 
of  a  Lydia  Thompson  Blonde.  I  may  be  wrong; 
she  may  never  have  trod  the  boards,  and  yet 
I  know  of  nothing  save  the  theatre  that  could 
account  for  her  appearance.  The  most  as- 
siduous of  her  visitors,  as  I  meet  them  on  the 
stairs,  is  an  old  gentleman  as  carefully  made 
up  in  his  way,  an  amazing  little  dandy,  whom  I 
fancy  as  somebody  in  the  front  row  applaud- 
ing rapturously  when  Mrs.  Eliza  Short,  in 
tights  and  golden  locks,  came  pirouetting 
down  the  stage.  I  should  have  been  inclined 
to  weave  a  pretty  romance  about  them  as  the 
modern  edition  of  Philemon  and  Baucis  if, 
knowing  Mrs.  Short,  it  did  not  become  im- 
possible to  associate  romance  of  any  kind  with 
her. 

305 


Our  House 

Our  acquaintance  was  begun  by  my  drinking 
tea  in  her  chambers  the  morning  "after  the 
fire,"  of  which  she  profited  unfairly  by  put- 
ting me  on  her  visiting-list.  She  was  not  at 
all  of  Montaigne's  opinion  that  "incuriosity" 
is  a  soft  and  sound  pillow  to  rest  a  well-com- 
posed head  upon.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  evi- 
dent that  for  hers  to  rest  in  comfort  she  must 
first  see  every  room  in  our  chambers  and  ex- 
amine into  all  my  domestic  arrangements.  I 
have  never  been  exposed  to  such  a  battery 
of  questions.  I  must  say  for  her  that  she  was 
more  than  ready  to  pay  me  in  kind.  Between 
her  questions  she  gave  me  a  vast  amount  of 
information  for  which  I  had  no  possible  use. 
She  told  me  the  exact  amount  of  her  income 
and  the  manner  of  its  investment.  She  ex- 
plained her  objection  to  servants  and  her 
preference  for  having  "somebody  in"  to  do 
the  rough  work.  She  confided  to  me  that  she 
dealt  at  the  Stores  where  she  could  always 
get  a  cold  chicken  and  a  bit  of  ham  at  a  pinch, 
and  the  "pinch"  at  once  presented  itself  to 
my  mind  as  an  occasion  when  the  old  dandy 
was  to  be  her  guest.  She  edified  me  by  her 

306 


The  Tenants 

habit  of  going  to  bed  with  the  lambs,  and  get- 
ting up  with  the  larks  to  do  her  own  dusting. 
The  one  ray  of  hope  she  allowed  me  was  the 
fact  that  her  winters  were  spent  at  Monte 
Carlo.  She  could  not  pass  me  on  the  stairs, 
or  in  the  hall,  or  on  the  street,  where  much 
of  her  time  was  lost,  without  buttonholing 
me  to  ask  on  what  amount  of  rent  I  was  rated, 
or  how  much  milk  I  took  in  of  a  morning,  or 
if  the  butcher  sent  me  tough  meat,  or  other 
things  that  were  as  little  her  business.  I  posi- 
tively dreaded  to  go  out  or  to  come  home, 
and  the  situation  was  already  strained  when 
Jimmy  rushed  to  the  rescue.  Elia  regretted 
the  agreeable  intimacies  broken  off  by  the  dogs 
whom  he  loved  less  than  their  owners,  but 
I  found  it  useful  to  have  a  cat  Mrs.  Short 
could  not  endure,  to  break  off  my  intimacy 
with  her,  and  he  did  it  so  effectually  that  I 
could  never  believe  it  was  not  done  on  pur- 
pose. One  day,  when  she  had  been  out  since 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  she  returned  to 
find  Jimmy  locked  up  in  her  chambers  alone 
with  her  bird.  That  the  bird  was  still  hopping 
about  its  cage  was  to  me  the  most  mysterious 

307 


Our  House 

feature  in  the  whole  affair,  for  Jimmy  was  a 
splendid  sportsman.  After  his  prowls  in  the 
garden  he  only  too  often  left  behind  him  a 
trail  of  feathers  and  blood-stains  all  the  way 
up  the  three  flights  of  our  stairs.  But  if  the 
bird  had  not  escaped,  Mrs.  Short  could  hardly 
have  been  more  furious.  She  demanded  Jim- 
my's life,  and  when  it  was  refused,  insisted 
on  his  banishment.  She  threatened  him  with 
poison  and  me  with  exposure  to  the  Land- 
lord. For  days  the  Housekeeper  was  sent 
flying  backwards  and  forwards  between  Mrs. 
Short's  chambers  and  ours,  bearing  threats  and 
defiances.  Jimmy,  who  knew  as  well  as  I  did 
what  was  going  on,  rejoiced,  and  from  then 
until  his  untimely  death  never  ran  downstairs 
or  up  —  and  he  was  always  running  down  or 
up  —  without  stopping  in  front  of  her  door, 
giving  one  unearthly  howl,  and  then  flying; 
and  never  by  chance  did  he  pay  the  same 
little  attention  to  any  one  of  the  other  tenants. 
Mrs.  Short  does  not  allow  me  to  forget  her. 
As  her  voice  is  deep  and  harsh  and  thunders 
through  the  house  when  she  buttonholes  some- 
body else,  or  says  good-bye  to  a  friend  at  her 

308 


The  Tenants 

door,  I  hear  her  far  more  frequently  than  I 
care  to;  as  she  has  a  passion  for  strong  scent, 
I  often  smell  her  when  I  do  not  see  her  at  all ; 
and  as  in  the  Quarter  we  all  patronize  the 
same  tradesmen,  I  am  apt  to  run  into  her  not 
only  on  our  stairs,  but  in  the  dairy,  or  the 
Temple  of  Pomona,  or  further  afield  at  the 
Post  Office.  Then,  however,  we  both  stare 
stonily  into  vacancy,  failing  to  see  each  other, 
and  during  the  sixteen  years  since  that  first 
burst  of  confidence,  we  have  exchanged  not  a 
word,  not  as  much  as  a  glance:  an  admirable 
arrangement  which  I  owe  wholly  to  Jimmy. 

With  her  neighbours  on  the  other  side  of  the 
hall,  Mrs.  Short  has  nothing  in  common  ex- 
cept permanency  as  tenant.  Her  name  and 
the  sign  of  the  Church  League  faced  each  other 
on  the  First  Floor  when  we  came  to  our  cham- 
bers; they  face  each  other  still.  Her  golden 
wig  is  not  oftener  seen  on  our  stairs  than  the 
gaiters  and  aprons  of  the  Bishops  who  rely 
upon  the  League  for  a  periodical  cup  of  tea; 
her  voice  is  not  oftener  heard  than  the  dis- 
creet whispers  of  the  ladies  who  attend  the 
Bishops  in  adoring  crowds.  But  Jimmy's  in- 

309 


Our  House 

tervention  was  not  required  to  maintain  the 
impersonality  of  my  relations  with  the  League. 
It  has  never  shown  an  interest  in  my  affairs 
nor  a  desire  to  confide  its  own  to  me.  Save 
for  one  encounter  we  have  kept  between  us 
the  distance  which  it  should  be  the  object  of 
all  tenants  to  cultivate,  and  I  might  never 
have  looked  upon  it  as  more  than  a  name 
had  I  not  witnessed  its  power  to  attract  some 
of  the  clergy  and  to  enrage  others.  Nothing 
has  happened  in  our  house  to  astound  me  more 
than  the  angry  passions  it  kindled  in  two  of 
our  friends  who  are  clergymen.  One  vows 
that  he  will  never  come  to  see  us  again  so  long 
as  to  reach  our  chambers  he  must  pass  the 
League's  door;  the  second  reproaches  us  for 
having  invited  him,  his  mere  presence  in  the 
same  house  being  sufficient  to  ruin  his  cleri- 
cal reputation.  As  the  League  is  diligently 
working  for  the  Church  of  which  both  my 
friends  are  distinguished  lights,  I  feel  that  in 
these  matters  there  are  fine  shades  beyond 
my  unorthodox  intelligence.  It  is  also  as- 
tounding that  the  League  should  inflame  lay- 
men of  no  religious  tendencies  whatever  to 

310 


The  Tenants 

more  violent  antagonism.  Friends  altogether 
without  the  pale  have  taken  offence  at  what 
they  call  the  League's  arrogance  in  hanging 
up  its  signs  not  only  at  its  front  door,  but 
downstairs  in  the  vestibule,  and  again  on  the 
railings  without,  and  they  destroyed  promptly 
the  poster  it  once  ventured  to  put  upon  the 
stairs,  assuring  us  that  theirs  was  righteous 
wrath,  and  then,  in  the  manner  of  friends, 
leaving  us  to  face  the  consequences. 

For  myself  I  bear  no  ill-will  to  the  League. 
I  may  object  to  the  success  with  which  it  fills 
our  stairs  on  the  days  of  its  meetings  and  tea- 
parties,  but  I  cannot  turn  this  into  a  pretext 
for  quarrelling,  while  I  can  only  admire  the 
spirit  of  progress  that  has  made  it  the  first  in 
the  house  to  do  its  spring-cleaning  by  a  vacuum 
cleaner  and  to  set  up  a  private  letter-box. 
I  can  only  congratulate  it  on  the  prosperity 
that  has  caused  the  overflow  of  its  offices  into 
the  next  house,  and  so  led  indirectly  to  the  one 
personal  encounter  I  have  referred  to.  A  few 
of  the  rooms  were  to  let,  and  J.'s  proposal  to 
set  up  his  printing-press  in  one  of  them  in- 
volved us  in  a  correspondence  with  the  Secre- 


Our  House 

tary.  Then  I  called,  as  by  letter  we  were  un- 
able to  agree  upon  details.  The  League,  with 
a  display  of  hospitality  that  should  put  the 
Architect  to  shame,  bids  everybody  enter 
without  knocking.  But  when  I  accepted  this 
Christian  invitation,  I  was  confronted  by  a 
tall,  solemn-faced  young  man,  who  informed 
me  that  the  Secretary  was  "engaged  in  prayer," 
and  I  got  no  further  than  the  inner  hall.  As  I 
failed  to  catch  the  Secretary  in  his  less  pro- 
fessional moments,  and  as  his  devotions  did 
not  soften  his  heart  to  the  extent  of  meeting 
us  halfway,  we  quickly  resumed  the  usual 
impersonality  of  our  relations. 

I  cannot  imagine  our  house  without  the 
Church  League  and  Mrs.  Eliza  Short,  the 
Architect  and  Mr.  Square.  Were  their  names 
to  vanish  from  the  doors  where  I  have  seen 
them  for  the  last  sixteen  years,  it  would  give 
me  the  same  sense  of  insecurity  as  if  I  suddenly 
looked  out  of  my  window  to  a  Thames  run 
dry,  or  to  a  domeless  city  in  the  distance.  With 
this  older  group  of  tenants,  who  show  their 
respect  for  a  house  of  venerable  age  and  tradi- 
tions by  staying  in  it,  I  think  we  are  to  be 

312 


The  Tenants 

included  and  also  the  Solicitor  of  the  Ground 
Floor  Front.  He  has  been  with  us  a  short  time, 
it  is  true,  but  he  succeeded  our  old  Insurance 
Agent  whom  nothing  save  death  could  have 
removed,  and  for  years  before  he  lived  no 
further  away  than  Peter  the  Great's  house 
across  the  street,  where  he  would  be  still,  had 
it  not  been  torn  down  over  his  head  to  make 
way  for  the  gaudy,  new,  grey  stone  building 
which  foretells  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  our 
ancient  street.  The  Solicitor  cloisters  himself 
in  his  chambers  more  successfully  even  than 
the  Architect  or  the  Church  League,  and  I 
have  never  yet  laid  eyes  on  him  or  detected 
a  client  at  his  door. 

I  wish  the  same  could  be  said  of  our  other 
newcomers  who,  with  rare  exceptions,  exhibit 
a  restlessness  singularly  unbecoming  in  a  house 
that  has  stood  for  centuries.  In  the  Ground 
Floor  Back  change  for  long  was  continued. 
It  was  the  home  of  a  Theatrical  Agent  and  his 
family,  and  babyish  prattle  filled  our  once  si- 
lent halls;  it  was  the  office  of  a  Music  Hall 
Syndicate,  and  strange  noises  from  stranger 
instruments  came  floating  out  and  up  our 

313 


Our  House 

stairs,  and  blonde  young  ladies  in  towering  hats 
blocked  the  door.  Then  a  Newspaper  Corre- 
spondent drifted  in  and  drifted  out  again ;  and 
next  a  publisher  piled  his  books  in  the  win- 
dows, and  made  it  look  so  like  the  shop  which 
is  against  the  rules  of  the  house  that  his  dis- 
appearance seemed  his  just  reward. 

After  this  a  Steamship  Company  took  pos- 
session, bringing  suggestions  of  sunshine  and 
spice  with  the  exotic  names  of  its  vessels  and  the 
far-away  Southern  ports  for  which  they  sailed, 
— bringing,  too,  the  spirit  of  youth,  for  it  em- 
ployed many  young  men  and  women  whom  I 
would  meet  in  couples  whispering  on  the  stairs 
or  going  home  at  dusk  hand  in  hand.  Tender 
little  idyls  sprang  up  in  our  sober  midst.  But 
the  staff  of  young  lovers  hit  upon  the  roof  as 
trysting-place  at  the  luncheon  hour,  running 
races  and  playing  tag  up  there,  and  almost 
tumbling  through  our  skylight.  Cupid,  sport- 
ing overhead  with  wings  exchanged  for  hob- 
nailed boots,  was  unendurable,  and  I  had  to 
call  in  the  Landlord's  Agent.  He  is  the  unfor- 
tunate go-between  in  all  the  tenants'  differ- 
ences and  difficulties:  a  kind,  weary,  sympa- 

314 


The  Tenants 

thetic  man,  designed  by  Nature  for  amiable, 
good-natured  communication  with  his  fellow 
men,  and  decreed  by  Fate  and  his  calling  to 
communicate  with  them  constantly  in  their 
most  disagreeable  moods  and  phases.  Half  my 
fury  evaporated  at  sight  of  his  troubled  face, 
and  I  might  have  endured  the  races  and 
games  of  tag  could  I  have  foreseen  that,  al- 
most as  soon  as  he  put  a  stop  to  them,  the 
Steamship  Company  would  take  its  departure. 
The  Professor  who  then  came  in  is  so  ex- 
emplary a  tenant  that  I  hope  there  will  be 
no  more  changes  in  the  Ground  Floor  Back. 
He  is  a  tall,  ruddy,  well-built  man  of  the  type 
supposed  to  be  essentially  British  by  those 
who  have  never  seen  the  other  type  far  more 
general  in  the  provincial  town  or,  nearer  still, 
in  the  East  of  London.  He  is  of  middle-age 
and  should  therefore  have  out-grown  the  idyl- 
lic stage,  and  his  position  as  Professor  at  the 
University  is  a  guarantee  of  sobriety  and  de- 
corum. I  do  not  know  what  he  professes,  but 
I  can  answer  for  his  conscientiousness  in  pro- 
fessing it  by  the  regularity  with  which,  from 
our  windows,  I  see  him  of  a  morning  crossing 

315 


Our  House 

the  garden  below  on  his  way  to  his  classes.  His 
household  is  a  model  of  British  propriety. 
He  is  cared  for  by  a  motherly  housekeeper,  an 
eminently  correct  man-servant,  and  a  large 
hound  of  dignified  demeanour  and  a  sense  of 
duty  that  leads  him  to  suspect  an  enemy  in 
everybody  who  passes  his  master's  door.  His 
violence  in  protesting  against  unobjectionable 
tenants  like  ourselves  reconciles  me  to  dis- 
pensing with  a  dog,  especially  as  it  ends  with 
his  bark.  It  was  in  his  master's  chambers  that 
our  only  burglar  was  discovered,  —  a  forlorn 
makeshift  of  a  burglar  who  got  away  with 
nothing,  and  was  in  such  an  agony  of  fright 
when,  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  he 
was  pulled  out  from  under  the  dining-room 
table,  that  the  Professor  let  him  go  as  he  might 
have  set  free  a  fly  found  straying  in  his  jam- 
pot. 

The  Professor,  as  is  to  be  expected  of 
anybody  so  unmistakably  British,  cultivates 
a  love  for  sport.  I  suspect  him  of  making  his 
amusements  his  chief  business  in  life,  as  it 
is  said  a  man  should  and  as  the  Briton  cer- 
tainly does.  He  hunts  in  the  season,  and,  as 


The  Tenants 

he  motors  down  to  the  meet,  he  is  apt  to 
put  on  his  red  coat  and  white  breeches  before 
he  starts,  and  they  give  the  last  touch  of  re- 
spectability to  our  respectable  house.  He  is  an 
ardent  automobilist,  and  his  big  motor  at  our 
door  suggests  wealth  as  well  as  respectability. 
This  would  have  brought  us  into  close  ac- 
quaintance had  he  had  his  way.  Sport  is  sup- 
posed to  make  brothers  of  all  men  who  believe 
in  it,  but  from  this  category  I  must  except 
J.  at  those  anxious  moments  which  sport  does 
not  spare  its  followers.  He  was  preparing  to 
start  somewhere  on  his  fiery  motor  bicycle, 
and  the  Professor,  who  had  never  seen  one 
before,  wanted  to  know  all  about  it.  J.,  deeper 
than  he  cared  to  be  in  carburettors  and  other 
mysterious  matters,  was  not  disposed  to  be 
instructive,  and  I  think  the  Professor  was 
ashamed  of  having  been  beaten  in  the  game 
of  reserve  by  an  American,  for  he  has  made  no 
further  advances.  His  most  ambitious  achieve- 
ment is  ballooning,  to  which  he  owes  a  fame 
in  the  Quarter  only  less  than  Mr.  Square's. 
We  all  watch  eagerly,  with  a  feeling  of  pro- 
prietorship, for  the  balloons  on  the  afternoons 

317 


Our  House 

when  balloon  races  and  trials  start  from  the 
Crystal  Palace  or  Ranelagh.  I  have  caught 
our  little  fruiterer  in  the  act  of  pointing  out 
the  Professor's  windows  to  chance  customers; 
and  on  those  days  I  am  absorbed  in  the  sport- 
ing columns  of  the  afternoon  paper,  which,  at 
other  times,  I  pass  over  unread.  He  has  now 
but  to  fly  to  complete  his  triumph  and  the 
pride  of  our  house  in  him. 

Restlessness  also  prevails  in  the  Second 
Floor  Back,  and  as  we  are  immediately  above, 
we  suffer  the  more.  Hardly  a  tenant  has  re- 
mained there  over  a  year,  or  a  couple  of  years 
at  most,  and  all  in  succession  have  developed 
a  talent  for  interfering  with  our  comfort. 
First,  an  Honourable  occupied  the  chambers. 
His  title  was  an  unfailing  satisfaction  to  Mrs. 
Haines,  the  Housekeeper,  who  dwelt  upon 
it  unctuously  every  time  she  mentioned  him. 
I  am  not  learned  in  Debrett  and  Burke  and 
may  not  have  appreciated  its  value,  but  he 
might  have  been  Honourable  ten  times  over 
and  it  would  not  have  reconciled  me  to  him 
as  neighbour.  He  was  quite  sure,  if  I  was  not, 
that  he  was  a  great  deal  better  than  anybody 


The  Tenants 

else,  and  he  had  the  Briton's  independent  way 
of  asserting  it.  He  slammed  behind  him  every 
door  he  opened,  and  when  the  stairs  were 
barricaded  by  himself,  his  friends,  or  his  par- 
cels, and  we  wanted  to  pass,  he  failed  to  see 
us  as  completely  as  if  we  had  been  Mr.  Wells's 
Invisible  Man.  He  went  to  the  City  in  the 
morning  and  was  away  all  day,  even  an  Honour- 
able being  sometimes  compelled  to  pretend 
to  work.  But  this  was  no  relief.  During  his 
absence  his  servants  availed  themselves  of 
the  opportunity  to  assert  their  independence, 
which  they  did  with  much  vigour.  When  they 
were  not  slamming  doors  they  were  singing 
hymns,  until  Mrs.  Eliza  Short  from  her  cham- 
bers below  and  we  from  ours  above,  in  accord 
the  first  and  only  time  for  years,  joined  in  pro- 
test, and  drove  Mrs.  Haines  to  the  unpleasant 
task  of  remonstrating  with  an  Honourable. 

The  Honourable  who  had  come  down  from 
the  aristocracy  was  followed  by  a  Maitre 
d'Hotel  who  was  rapidly  rising  in  rank,  and 
was  therefore  under  as  urgent  necessity  to 
impress  us  with  his  importance.  Adolf  was 
an  Anglicized  German,  with  moustaches  like 

319 


Our  House 

the  Kaiser's,  and  the  swagger  of  a  drum- 
major.  He  treated  our  house  as  if  it  was  the 
dining-room  under  his  command,  locking  and 
unlocking  the  street  door,  turning  on  and  out 
the  lights  on  the  stairs  at  any  hour  that  suited 
him,  however  inconvenient  to  the  rest  of  us. 
He  littered  up  the  hall  with  his  children  and 
his  children's  perambulators  and  hobby-horses, 
just  where  we  all  had  to  stumble  over  them  to 
get  in  or  out.  Nobody's  taxi  tooted  so  loud 
as  his,  not  even  the  Honourable's  door  had 
shut  with  such  a  bang.  Augustine's  husband 
being  also  something  in  the  same  profession, 
they  both  despised  the  Adolfs  for  putting  on 
airs  though  no  better  than  themselves,  while 
the  Adolfs  despised  them  for  not  having  at- 
tained the  same  splendid  heights,  and  the 
shaking  of  my  rugs  out  of  the  back  windows 
was  seized  upon  as  the  excuse  for  open  war- 
fare. Augustine  said  it  was  there  they  should 
be  shaken  according  to  the  law  in  Paris,  which 
she  thought  good  enough  for  London.  Mrs. 
Adolf  protested  that  the  shaking  sent  all  the 
dust  into  her  rooms.  Augustine,  whose  Eng- 
lish is  small  and  what  there  is  of  it  not  beyond 

320 


The  Tenants 

reproach,  called  Mrs.  Adolf  "silly  fou,"  which 
must  have  been  annoying,  or  harangued  her 
in  French  when  Mrs.  Adolf,  who  could  not 
understand,  suspected  an  offence  in  every 
word. 

Mrs.  Adolf  wrote  to  the  Agent,  to  the  Land- 
lord, to  me;  she  declared  she  would  summons 
me  to  the  County  Court.  Between  letters 
she  watched  at  her  window  for  the  rugs,  and 
there  both  her  servant  and  her  charwoman 
made  faces  at  Augustine,  who  has  a  nice  sense 
of  justice  and  a  temper  that  does  not  permit 
her,  with  Elizabeth  Bennet's  father,  to  be 
satisfied  by  laughing  in  her  turn  at  those  who 
have  made  sport  of  her.  I  trembled  for  the 
consequences.  But  at  the  critical  moment, 
Adolf  was  promoted  to  the  more  splendid 
height  of  Manager  and  a  larger  salary;  the 
taxi  was  replaced  by  a  motor-car  of  his  own; 
Mrs.  Adolf  arrayed  herself  in  muslin  and  lace 
for  the  washtub,  in  nothing  less  elegant  than 
velvet  for  the  street,  and  they  left  our  old- 
fashioned  chambers  for  the  marble  halls  and 
gilded  gorgeousness  of  the  modern  mansion. 

Of  the  several  tenants  after  the  Adolfs,  I 
321 


Our  House 

seem  to  remember  little  save  the  complaints 
we  interchanged.  I  tried  my  best  to  do  as  I 
would  be  done  by  and  to  keep  out  of  their  way, 
but  accident  was  always  throwing  us  together 
to  our  mutual  indignation.  There  was  the 
Bachelor  whose  atrocious  cook  filled  our  cham- 
bers with  the  rank  odours  of  smoked  herring 
and  burnt  meat,  and  whose  deserted  ladylove 
filled  the  stairs  with  lamentations.  There  was 
the  young  Married  Couple  into  whose  bath- 
tub ours  overflowed.  There  was  the  Acci- 
dental Actress  whose  loud  voice  and  heavy 
boots  were  the  terror  not  only  of  our  house, 
but  of  the  street,  whose  telephone  rang  from 
morning  till  night,  whose  dog  howled  all 
evening  when  he  was  left  alone  as  he  usually 
was,  and  whose  rehearsals  in  her  rooms  inter- 
rupted the  work  in  ours  with  ear-piercing  yells 
of  "Murder"  and  "Villain." 

I  cannot  recall  them  all,  so  rapidly  did  they 
come  and  go.  We  began  to  fear  that  the  life 
of  the  tenant  was,  as  Tristram  Shandy  de- 
scribed the  life  of  man,  a  shifting  from  sorrow 
to  sorrow.  We  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  fault- 
finding, though  when  there  was  serious  cause 

322 


The  Tenants 

for  complaint,  not  a  murmur  could  be  wrung 
from  the  tenant  below  or,  for  that  matter, 
from  a  tenant  in  the  house.  All,  like  true 
Britons,  refused  to  admit  the  possibility  of 
interests  in  common,  and  would  not  stir  a 
hand,  however  pressing  the  danger,  so  long 
as  they  were  not  disturbed.  If  our  chambers 
reeked  with  smoke  and  the  smell  of  burning 
wood,  they  accepted  the  information  with 
calm  indifference  because  theirs  did  not.  Nor 
did  it  serve  as  a  useful  precedent  if,  as  it  hap- 
pened, smoke  and  smell  were  traced  again  to 
a  fire,  smouldering  as  it  had  been  for  nobody 
knew  how  long,  in  the  cellar  of  the  adjoining 
house,  separated  from  ours  only  by  the  "party 
wall"  belonging  to  both:  that  ingenious  con- 
trivance of  the  builder  for  creating  ill-will  be- 
tween next-door  neighbours.  They  declined 
to  feel  the  bannisters  loose  under  their  grasp, 
or  to  see  the  wide  gap  opened  in  the  same 
party  wall  after  the  fall  of  the  roof  of  Charing 
Cross  Station  had  shaken  the  Quarter  to  its 
foundations  and  made  us  believe  for  a  moment 
that  London  was  emulating  Messina  or  San 
Francisco.  And  I  must  add,  so  characteristic 

323 


Our  House 

was  it,  that  the  Agent  dismissed  our  fears  as 
idle,  and  that  the  Surveyor,  sent  at  our  request 
by  the  County  Council,  laughed  us  to  scorn. 
But  we  laughed  best,  for  we  laughed  last.  A 
second  Surveyor  ordered  the  wall  to  be  pulled 
down  as  unsafe  and  re-built,  and  the  Agent 
in  the  end  found  it  prudent  to  support  the 
bannisters  with  iron  braces. 

When,  after  these  trials  and  tribulations,  Mr. 
Allan  took  the  Second  Floor  Back  we  thought 
the  Millennium  had  come.  He  was  a  quiet  man, 
employed  in  the  morning,  so  we  were  told,  in 
writing  a  life  of  Chopin,  and  in  the  evening, 
as  we  heard  for  ourselves,  in  playing  Chopin 
divinely.  The  piano  is  an  instrument  calcu- 
lated to  convert  an  otherwise  harmless  neigh- 
bour into  a  nuisance,  but  of  him  it  made  a  de- 
light. He  was  waited  upon  by  a  man  as  quiet, 
whose  consideration  for  the  tenants  went  to 
the  length  of  felt  slippers  in  the  house,  who 
never  slammed  doors  nor  sang,  who  never 
even  whistled  at  his  work.  An  eternity  of 
peace  seemed  to  open  out  before  us,  but,  as 
they  say  in  novels,  it  was  not  to  be.  Our  confi- 
dence in  Mr.  Allan  was  first  shaken  by  what  I 

324 


The  Tenants 

still  think  an  unjustified  exhibition  of  nerves. 
One  night,  or  rather  one  early  morning,  a  ring 
at  our  door-bell  startled  us  at  an  hour  when, 
in  my  experience,  it  means  either  a  fire  or  an 
American  cablegram.  It  was  therefore  the 
more  exasperating,  on  opening  the  door,  to  be 
faced  by  an  irate  little  man  in  pyjamas  and 
smoking  jacket  who  wanted  to  know  when  we 
proposed  to  go  to  bed.  Only  after  J.'s  answer 
"when  we  are  ready,"  did  we  know  it  was 
Mr.  Allan  by  his  explanation  that  his  bed  was 
under  the  room  where  we  were  walking  about, 
that  the  floor  was  thin,  and  that  he  could  not 
sleep.  J.  would  not  enter  into  an  argument. 
He  said  the  hour  was  not  the  most  appropri- 
ate for  a  criticism  of  the  construction  of  the 
house  which,  besides,  was  at  all  hours  the 
Landlord's  and  not  his  affair,  and  Mr.  Allan 
had  the  grace  to  carry  his  complaint  no  further. 
It  may  have  occurred  to  him  on  reflection  that 
it  was  not  our  fault  if  he  had  chosen  a  room 
to  sleep  in  just  below  the  room  we  used  to  sit 
and  see  our  friends  in. 

Had  I  borne  malice,  I  should  not  have  had 
to  wait  long  for  my  revenge,  nor  to  plan  it 

325 


Our  House 

myself.  Not  many  days  later,  Mr.  Allan's 
servant,  watering  the  flowers  on  the  open 
balcony  at  Mr.  Allan's  window,  watered  by 
mistake  the  new  Paris  bonnet  of  the  lady  of 
the  Ground  Floor  Back  who  was  coming 
home  at  that  very  minute.  Under  the  cir- 
cumstances few  women  would  not  have  lost 
their  temper,  but  few  would  have  been  so 
prompt  in  action.  She  walked  straight  up- 
stairs to  Mr.  Allan's  chambers,  the  wreck  in 
her  hand.  The  servant  opened  to  her  knock, 
but  she  insisted  upon  seeing  the  master. 

"I  have  come,  Allan,  to  tell  you  what  I 
think  of  the  conduct  of  your  servant,"  she 
said,  when  the  master  appeared..  "Yes,  I  call 
you  Allan,  for  I  mean  to  talk  to  you  as  man 
to  man,"  which  she  proceeded  to  do. 

I  did  not  hear  the  talk,  but  it  was  almost  a 
week  before  I  heard  the  piano  again.  Poor 
Mr.  Allan!  And  this  proved  a  trifle  to  the 
worse  humiliation  he  was  soon  to  endure. 

As  I  sat  with  a  book  by  my  lamp  one  even- 
ing before  dinner,  shrieks  from  his  chambers 
and  a  crash  of  crockery  sent  me  rushing  to 
the  door  and  out  upon  the  landing,  with  Au- 

326 


The  Tenants 

gustine  at  my  heels.  Old  Tom  and  his  wife 
arrived  there  simultaneously,  and,  looking 
cautiously  over  the  bannisters,  I  saw  an  anx- 
ious crowd  looking  up  as  cautiously  from  the 
hall  on  the  Ground  Floor.  The  shrieks  de- 
veloped into  curses  intermingled  with  more 
riotous  crashing  of  china.  The  Housekeeper, 
urged  by  the  crowd  below,  crept  all  unwill- 
ing to  Mr.  Allan's  door  and  knocked.  The 
door  was  flung  open,  and,  before  she  ventured 
to  "beg  pardon  but  the  noise  disturbed  the 
other  tenants,"  Mr.  Allan's  hitherto  well- 
behaved  servant  greeted  her  with  a  volley  of 
blood-curdling  epithets  and  the  smash  of  every 
pane  of  glass  in  the  upper  panel  of  the  door, 
and  down  she  fled  again.  He  bolted  out  after 
her,  but  looking  up  and  catching  a  glimpse  of 
Tom,  peacefully  sucking  a  lemon-drop,  he  be- 
came so  personal  that  Tom  and  his  wife  re- 
treated hastily,  and  for  the  first  time  the  smile 
faded  from  the  old  man's  face.  In  a  moment's 
lull  I  heard  Mr.  Allan's  voice,  low  and  entreat- 
ing, then  more  curses,  more  crashes.  I  should 
not  have  thought  there  was  so  much  glass  and 
crockery  to  be  broken  in  the  whole  house. 

327 


Our  House 

Presently  a  policeman  appeared,  and  then 
a  second.  The  door  was  open,  but  the  servant 
was  busy  finishing  up  the  crockery.  Mr.  Allan 
spoke  to  them,  and  then,  like,  a  flash,  the  ser- 
vant was  there  too. 

"I  dare  you  to  let  them  come  in!"  he  yelled, 
so  loud  he  could  be  heard  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom  of  the  house.  ,  "I  dare  you  to  let  them 
come  in!  I  dare  you  to  give  me  in  charge!  I 
dare  you!  I  dare  you!" 

And  Mr.  Allan  did  not  dare,  that  was  the 
astonishing  part  of  it.  And  he  never  lost  his 
temper.  He  argued  with  the  policemen,  he 
plead  with  the  servant,  while  one  group  on 
our  landing  and  another  on  the  Ground  Floor 
waited  anxiously.  The  policemen  did  not  de- 
sert us  but  stood  guard  on  the  Second  Floor, 
which  was  a  reassurance,  until  gradually  the 
yells  were  lowered,  the  crashes  came  at  longer 
intervals,  and  at  last,  I  suppose  in  sheer  ex- 
haustion, the  servant  relapsed  into  his  usual 
calm,  Mr.  Allan  "sported  his  oak,"  and  I 
learned  how  truly  an  Englishman's  home  is 
his  castle. 

The  Housekeeper  spent  the  evening  on  the 
328 


The  Tenants 

stairs  gossiping  at  every  door.  There  was  not 
much  to  learn  from  her.  A  mystery  was  hinted 
—  many  mysteries  were  hinted.  The  truth  I 
do  not  know  to  this  moment.  I  only  know 
that  before  the  seven  days  of  our  wonder  were 
over,  the  Agent,  more  careworn  than  ever  if 
that  were  possible,  made  a  round  of  visits  in 
the  house,  giving  to  each  tenant  an  ample 
and  abject  apology  written  by  Mr.  Allan.  At 
the  end  of  the  quarter,  the  Second  Floor  Back 
was  again  to  let. 

We  should  have  parted  with  Mr.  Allan  less 
light-heartedly  could  we  have  anticipated  what 
was  in  store  for  us.  He  was  no  sooner  gone 
than  the  Suffragettes  came  in. 

I  have  no  quarrel  on  political  grounds  with 
the  Suffragettes.  Theoretically,  I  believe  that 
women  of  property  and  position  should  have 
their  vote  and  that  men  without  should  not, 
but  I  think  it  a  lesser  evil  for  women  to  be 
denied  the  vote  than  for  the  suffrage  to  be- 
come as  universal  for  women  as  for  men,  and  to 
grant  it  on  any  other  conditions  would  be  an 
indignity.  I  state  the  fact  to  explain  that  I 
am  without  prejudice.  I  do  not  argue,  for,  to 

329 


Our  House 

tell  the  truth,  shocking  as  it  may  be,  I  am  not 
keen  one  way  or  the  other.  Life  for  me  has 
grown  crowded  enough  without  politics,  and 
years  have  lessened  the  ardour  for  abstract  jus- 
tice that  was  mine  when,  in  my  youth,  I  wrote 
the  "Life  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft,"  and  mili- 
tant Suffragettes  as  yet  were  not.  Ours  are 
of  the  most  militant  variety,  and  it  is  not  their 
fault  if  the  world  by  this  time  does  not  know 
what  this  means.  Even  so,  on  general  prin- 
ciples, I  should  have  no  grievance  against 
them.  Every  woman  is  free  to  make  herself 
ridiculous,  and  it  is  none  of  my  business  if  my 
neighbours  choose  to  make  a  public  spectacle 
of  themselves  by  struggling  in  the  arms  of 
policemen,  or  going  into  hysterics  at  meetings 
where  nobody  wants  them ;  if  they  like  to  emu- 
late bad  boys  by  throwing  stones  and  break- 
ing windows,  or  if  it  amuses  them  to  slap  and 
whip  unfortunate  statesmen  who,  physically, 
could  easily  convince  them  of  their  inferiority. 
But  when  they  make  themselves  a  nuisance 
to  me  personally  I  draw  the  line.  And  they 
are  a  nuisance  to  me. 

They  have  brought  pandemonium  into  the 
330 


The  Tenants 

Quarter  where  once  all  was  pleasantness  and 
peace.  Of  old,  if  the  postman,  the  milkman, 
a  messenger  boy,  and  one  or  two  stray  dogs 
and  children  lingered  in  our  street,  we  thought 
it  a  crowd;  since  the  coming  of  the  Suffragettes, 
I  have  seen  the  same  street  packed  solid  with 
a  horde  of  the  most  degenerate  creatures  in 
London  summoned  by  them  "to  rush  the 
House  of  Commons."  They  have  ground  their 
hurdy-gurdies  at  our  door,  Heaven  knows  to 
what  end;  vans  covered  with  their  posters  have 
obstructed  our  crossing;  motor-cars  adorned 
with  their  flags  have  missed  fire  and  exploded 
in  our  street;  and  they  have  had  themselves 
photographed  as  sandwiches  on  our  Terrace. 
Our  house  is  in  a  turmoil  from  morning  till 
night  with  women  charging  in  like  a  mob,  or 
stealing  out  like  conspirators.  Their  badges, 
their  sandwich  boards,  their  banners  lie  about 
in  our  hall,  so  much  in  everybody's  way  that  I 
sympathized  with  the  infuriated  tenant  whom 
I  caught  one  night  kicking  the  whole  collection 
into  the  cellar.  They  talk  so  hard  on  the  stairs 
that  often  they  pass  their  own  door  and  come 
on  to  ours,  bringing  Augustine  from  her  work 


Our  House 

and  disturbing  me  at  mine,  for  she  can  never 
open  to  them  without  poking  her  head  into 
my  room  to  tell  me,  "Encore  une  sale  Suf- 
fragette !  "  In  their  chambers  they  never  stop 
chattering,  and  their  high  shrill  treble  pene- 
trates through  the  floor  and  reaches  us  up 
above.  The  climax  came  with  their  invasion 
of  our  roof. 

This  roof,  built  "after  the  fire,"  is  a  mod- 
ern invention,  designed  for  the  torture  of  who- 
ever lives  underneath.  It  is  flat,  with  a  beau- 
tiful view  to  be  had  among  the  chimney-pots 
and  telephone  wires ;  it  is  so  thin  that  a  pigeon 
could  not  waddle  across  without  being  heard 
by  us;  and  as  it  is  covered  with  gravel,  every 
sound  is  accompanied  by  a  scrunching  war- 
ranted to  set  the  strongest  nerves  in  a  quiver. 
We  had  already  been  obliged  to  represent  to 
the  Agent  that  it  was  not  intended  for  the 
Housekeeper's  afternoon  parties  or  young  peo- 
ple's games  of  tag,  that  there  were  other, 
more  suitable  places  where  postmen  could  take 
a  rest,  or  our  actress  recite  her  lines,  or  lovers 
do  their  courting  amid  the  smuts.  Our  patience, 
indeed,  had  been  so  tried  in  one  way  or  another 

332 


The  Tenants 

that  at  the  first  sound  from  above,  at  any  hour 
of  the  day  or  night,  J.  was  giving  chase  to  the 
trespassers,  and  they  were  retreating  before 
the  eloquence  of  his  attack.  It  was  in  a  corner 
of  this  roof,  just  above  the  studio  and  in  among 
wood-enclosed  cisterns,  that  the  Suffragettes 
elected  to  send  off  fire-balloons,  which,  in  some 
way  best  known  to  themselves,  were  to  im- 
press mankind  with  the  necessity  of  giving 
them  the  vote.  The  first  balloon  floated  above 
the  chimney-tops,  a  sheet  of  flame,  and  was 
dropping,  happily  into  the  Thames,  when  J., 
straight  from  his  printing-press,  in  blouse, 
sleeves  rolled  up,  arms  and  hands  black  with 
ink,  a  cap  set  sideways,  was  on  the  roof,  and 
the  Secretary  of  the  Militants  and  a  young 
man  in  the  brown  suit  and  red  tie  that  de- 
note the  Socialist,  in  their  hands  matches  and 
spirits  of  wine,  were  flying  downstairs.  I  was 
puzzled  to  account  for  their  meekness  unless 
it  was  that  never  before  had  they  seen  any- 
body so  inky,  never  before  listened  to  language 
so  picturesque  and  American.  J.,  without  giv- 
ing them  time  to  take  breath,  called  in  the 
Landlord's  Agent,  supported  by  the  Landlord's 

333 


Our  House 

Solicitor,  and  they  were  convinced  of  the  policy 
of  promising  not  to  do  it  again.  And  of  course 
they  did. 

A  week  later  the  Prime  Minister  was  un- 
veiling a  statue,  or  performing  some  equally 
innocent  function  in  the  garden  below  our 
windows,  when  the  Suffragettes,  from  the  roofs 
of  near  woodsheds,  demanded  him  through  a 
megaphone  to  give  Votes  to  Women.  We  fol- 
lowed the  movement  with  such  small  zest  that 
when  we  were  first  aware  something  out  of  the 
common  was  going  on  in  the  Quarter,  the  two 
heroines  were  already  in  the  arms  of  police- 
men, where  of  late  so  much  of  the  English- 
woman's time  has  been  spent,  and  heads  were 
at  every  window  up  and  down  our  street, 
housekeepers  at  every  door,  butchers'  and 
bakers'  boys  grouped  on  the  sidewalk,  one  or 
two  tradesmen's  carts  drawn  up  in  the  gutter, 
battalions  of  police  round  the  corner.  The 
women  no  doubt  to-day  boast  of  the  per- 
formance as  a  bold  strike  for  freedom,  and 
recall  with  pride  the  sensation  it  created. 

At  this  point  I  lost  sight  of  the  conflict  on 
the  roof  below,  for,  from  the  roof  above,  a  bal- 

334 


The  Tenants 

loon  shot  upwards,  so  high  that  only  the  angels 
could  have  read  the  message  it  bore.  The  fa- 
miliar scrunching,  though  strangely  muffled, 
was  heard,  and  J.,  again  in  blouse  and  ink, 
was  up  and  away  on  a  little  campaign  of  his 
own.  This  time  he  found  six  women,  each  with 
a  pair  of  shoes  at  her  side  and  her  feet  drawn 
up  under  her,  squatting  in  a  ring  behind  the 
cisterns,  bending  over  a  can  of  spirits  of  wine, 
and  whispering  and  giggling  like  school-girls. 

"It  won't  go  off,"  they  giggled,  and  the 
next  minute  all  chance  of  its  ever  going  off  was 
gone,  for  J.  had  seized  the  balloon  and  torn 
it  to  tatters. 

"You  have  destroyed  our  property,"  shrieked 
a  venerable  little  old  lady,  thin  and  withered, 
with  many  wrinkles  and  straggling  grey  hair. 

He  told  her  that  was  what  he  had  intended 
to  do. 

"But  it  cost  ten  shillings,"  she  squeaked  in 
a  tremor  of  rage,  and  with  an  attempt  at  dig- 
nity, but  it  is  as  hard  to  be  dignified,  as  Cor- 
poral Trim  found  it  to  be  respectful,  when  one 
is  sitting  squat  upon  the  ground. 

A  younger  woman,  golden-haired,  in  big 
335 


Our  House 

hat  and  feathers,  whom  the  others  called 
Duchess,  demanded  "Who  are  you  anyhow?" 
And  when  I  consider  his  costume  and  his 
inkiness  I  wonder  he  had  not  been  asked  it 
long  before. 

"You  can  go  downstairs  and  find  out,"  he 
said,  "but  down  you  go!" 

There  was  a  moment's  visible  embarrass- 
ment, and  they  drew  their  stocking  feet  closer 
up  under  them.  J.,  in  whom  they  had  left  some 
few  shreds  of  the  politeness  which  he,  as  a  true 
American,  believes  is  woman's  due,  consid- 
erately looked  the  other  way.  As  soon  as 
they  were  able  to  rise  up  in  their  shoes,  they 
altogether  lost  their  heads.  The  Housekeeper 
and  the  Agent,  summoned  in  the  mean  time, 
were  waiting  as  they  began  to  crawl  down  the 
straight  precipitous  ladder  from  the  roof.  In 
an  agony  of  apprehension,  the  women  clutched 
their  skirts  tight  about  them,  protesting  and 
scolding  the  while.  The  little  old  lady  tried 
to  escape  into  our  chambers,  one  or  two  stood 
at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  cutting  off  all  approach, 
the  others  would  not  budge  from  our  narrow 
landing.  A  telegraph  boy  and  a  man  with  a 

336 


The  Tenants 

parcel  endeavoured  to  get  past  them  and  up  to 
us,  but  they  would  not  give  way  an  inch.  Finally 
in  despair,  J.  gently  collected  them  and  pushed 
them  down  the  stairs  towards  their  own  door. 

"We  will  have  you  arrested  for  assault!" 
the  little  old  lady  shrieked. 

"We  charge  you  with  assault  and  battery," 
the  golden-haired  lady  re-echoed  from  below. 

And  we  heard  no  more,  for  at  last,  with  a 
sigh  of  relief,  J.  could  get  to  our  door  and  shut 
out  the  still  ascending  uproar. 

But  that  was  not  the  end  of  it.  If  you  can 
believe  it,  they  were  on  the  roof  again  within 
an  hour,  getting  themselves  and  their  mega- 
phone photographed,  for  the  fight  for  freedom 
would  not  be  half  so  sweet  without  the  pub- 
licity of  portraits  in  the  press.  And  we  were 
besieged  with  letters.  One  Suffragette  wrote 
that  an  apology  was  due,  —  yes,  J.  replied, 
due  to  him.  A  second  lectured  him  on  the  of- 
fence given  to  her  "dear  friend,  the  Duchess," 
for  to  become  a  Suffragette  is  not  to  cease  to 
be  a  snob,  and  warned  him  that  the  Duchess 
—  who  was  the  golden-haired  lady  and  may 
have  had  the  bluest  blood  of  England  in  her 

337 


Our  House 

veins,  but  who  looked  more  like  one  of  the 
Gaiety  girls,  from  whom  the  stock  of  the 
British  nobility  has  been  so  largely  replenished 
—  and  the  Duke  intended  to  consult  their 
Solicitor  if  regret  were  not  expressed.  And 
the  Landlord's  Agent  called,  and  the  Land- 
lord's Solicitor  followed,  and  a  Police  Inspector 
was  sent  from  Scotland  Yard  for  facts,  —  and 
he  reprimanded  J.  for  one  mistake,  for  not 
having  locked  the  door  on  the  inside  when  they 
were  out,  —  and  the  insurance  people  wanted 
to  know  about  the  fire-balloons,  and  every- 
body with  any  possible  excuse  came  down  upon 
us,  except  the  police  officer  with  the  warrant 
to  arrest  J.  for  assault  and  battery. 

It  is  all  over  now.  If  the  Suffragettes  still 
hatch  their  plots  under  our  roof,  they  are  de- 
nied the  use  of  it  for  carrying  them  out.  They 
leave  us  in  peace  for  the  moment,  the  quiet 
which  is  the  charm  of  an  old  house  like  ours 
has  returned  to  it,  and  outwardly  the  tenants 
cultivate  the  repose  and  dignity  incumbent 
upon  them  as  the  descendants  of  Bacon  and 
Pepys  and  the  inheritors  of  a  great  past. 


X 

The  Quarter 


X 

THE  QUARTER 

MY  windows  command  the  Quarter,  and 
what  they  do  not  overlook,  Augustine  does. 

Some  people  might  think  there  could  not 
be  much  to  overlook,  for  the  Quarter  is  as 
quiet  and  secluded  as  the  Inns  of  Court. 
J.  is  forever  boasting  that  if  he  is  in  London 
he  is  not  of  it,  and  that  he  lives  the  simple 
life,  with  Charing  Cross  just  round  the  corner. 
The  "full  tide  of  existence"  sweeps  by,  seldom 
overflowing  into  the  Quarter,  which  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  places  in  all  the  town  to  find 
for  those  who  do  not  know  the  way.  Only  two 
streets  lead  directly  into  it  from  anywhere, 
and  they  lead  directly  nowhere  out  of  it  again; 
nor  do  the  crowds  in  the  near  Strand  as  much 
as  see  the  dirty  courts  and  dark  alleys  which 
are  my  short  cuts,  much  less  the  underground 
passages  which  serve  the  same  purpose,  —  the 
mysterious  labyrinth  of  carpenters'  shops  and 


Our  House 

warehouses  and  vast  wine-cellars,  grim  and 
fantastic  and  unbelievable  as  Ali  Baba  and  the 
whole  Arabian  Nights,  burrowed  under  the 
Quarter  and  approached  by  tunnels,  so  pic- 
turesque that  Gericault  made  a  lithograph 
of  one  when  he  was  in  London,  so  murderous 
that  to  this  day  they  are  infested  with  police 
who  turn  a  flashing  bull's-eye  upon  you  as  you 
pass.  Altogether,  the  Quarter  is  a  "shy  place" 
full  of  traps  for  the  unwary.  I  have  had 
friends,  coming  to  see  me  for  the  first  time, 
lose  themselves  in  our  underground  maze;  I 
have  known  the  crowd,  pouring  from  the 
Strand  on  Lord  Mayor's  Day,  get  hopelessly 
entangled  in  our  network;  as  a  rule,  nobody 
penetrates  into  it  except  on  business  or  by 
chance. 

But  for  all  that,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  see, 
and  the  Quarter,  quiet  though  it  may  be,  is 
never  dull  as  I  watch  it  from  my  high  win- 
dows. To  the  front  I  look  out  on  the  Thames: 
down  to  St.  Paul's,  up  to  Westminster,  oppo- 
site to  Surrey,  and,  on  a  clear  day  as  far  as 
the  hills.  Trains  rumble  across  the  bridges, 
trams  screech  and  clang  along  the  Embank- 
342 


The  Quarter 

ment,  tugs,  pulling  their  line  of  black  barges, 
whistle  and  snort  on  the  river.  The  tide 
brings  with  it  the  smell  of  the  sea  and,  in 
winter,  the  great  white  flights  of  gulls.  At 
night  myriads  of  lights  come  out,  and  always, 
at  all  hours  and  all  seasons,  there  is  movement 
and  life,  —  always  I  seem  to  feel  the  pulse  of 
London  even  as  I  have  its  roar  in  my  ears. 

To  the  east  I  look  down  to  streets  of  houses 
black  with  London  grime,  still  stately  in  their 
old-fashioned  shabbiness,  as  old  as  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century,  which  I  have  read  somewhere 
means  the  beginning  of  the  world  for  an 
American  like  myself. 

To  the  west  I  tower  over  a  wilderness  of 
chimney-pots,  for  our  house  is  built  on  the 
edge  of  a  hill,  not  very  high  though  the  Lon- 
don horse  mistakes  it  for  an  Alpine  pass,  but 
high  enough  to  lift  our  walls,  on  this  side  sheer 
and  cliff-like,  above  an  amazing  collection  of 
tumbled,  weather-worn,  red-tiled  roofs,  and 
crooked  gables  sticking  out  at  unexpected 
angles,  that  date  back  I  am  not  to  be  bullied 
by  facts  into  saying  how  far,  and  that  stretch 
away,  range  upon  range,  to  loftier  houses 
343 


Our  House 

beyond,  they  in  their  turn  over-shadowed  by 
the  hotels  and  clubs  on  the  horizon,  and  in 
among  them,  an  open  space  with  the  spire  of 
St.  Martin-in-the-Fields  springing  up  out  of 
it,  dark  by  day,  a  white  shadow  by  night,  — 
our  ghost,  we  call  it. 

And  most  wonderful  of  all  is  the  expanse  of 
sky  above  and  around  us,  instead  of  the  tiny 
strip  framed  in  by  the  narrow  street  which  is 
the  usual  share  of  the  Londoner.  We  could 
see  the  sun  rise  every  morning  behind  St. 
Paul's,  if  we  were  up  in  time,  and  of  course 
if  there  was  a  sun  every  morning  in  London 
to  rise.  Over  the  river,  when  fog  and  mist  do 
not  envelop  it  as  in  a  shroud,  the  clouds  — 
the  big,  low,  heavy  English  clouds — float  and 
drift  and  scurry  and  whirl  and  pile  themselves 
into  mountains  with  a  splendour  that  might 
have  inspired  Ruskin  to  I  do  not  know  how 
many  more  chapters  in  "  Modern  Painters  "  had 
he  lived  in  the  Quarter.  Behind  our  collection 
of  tumbled  roofs  and  gables  awry,  the  sun  — 
always  provided  there  is  a  sun  —  sets  with  a 
dramatic  gorgeousness  that,  if  it  were  only 
in  any  remote  part  of  the  world,  the  Londoner 

344 


The  Quarter 

would  spare  himself  no  time  nor  trouble  to 
see,  but  that,  because  it  is  in  London,  remains 
a  spectacle  for  us  to  enjoy  by  ourselves.  And 
the  wonder  grows  with  the  night,  —  the  river, 
with  its  vague  distances  and  romantic  glooms 
and  starlike  lights,  losing  itself  in  mystery, 
and  mystery  lurking  in  the  little  old  streets 
with  their  dark  spectral  mass  of  houses, 
broken  by  one  or  two  spaces  of  flat  white  wall, 
and  always  in  the  distance  the  clubs  and  hotels, 
now  castles  and  cathedrals,  and  the  white 
tapering  ghost  pointing  heavenward.  With 
so  stupendous  a  spectacle  arranged  for  my 
benefit,  is  it  any  marvel  that  much  of  my  time 
is  spent  at  my  windows  ?  And  how  can  I  help 
it  if,  when  I  am  there,  I  see  many  things 
besides  the  beauty  that  lured  us  to  the  Quarter 
and  keeps  us  in  it? 

Hundreds  of  windows  look  over  into  mine: 
some  so  far  off  that  they  are  mere  glittering 
spots  on  a  rampart  of  high  walls  in  the  day- 
light, mere  dots  of  light  at  dusk;  some  as 
carefully  curtained  as  if  the  "Drawn  Blinds" 
or  "Green  Shutters"  of  romance  had  not 
stranger  things  to  hide  from  the  curious.  But 
345 


Our  House 

others  are  too  near  and  too  unveiled  for  what 
goes  on  behind  them  to  escape  the  most  dis- 
creet. In  what  does  go  on  there  is  infinite 
variety,  for  the  Quarter,  like  the  Inns  of 
Court,  is  let  out  in  offices  and  chambers,  and 
the  house  that  shelters  but  one  tenant  is  the 
exception,  if  indeed  it  exists. 

All  these  windows  and  the  people  I  see 
through  them  have  become  as  much  a  part 
of  my  view  as  the  trains  and  the  trams,  the 
taxis  and  the  tugs.  I  should  think  the  last 
days  of  the  Quarter  were  at  hand  if,  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning,  I  did  not  find  the  printer 
hard  at  work  at  his  window  under  one  of  the 
little  gables  below;  or  if,  the  last  thing  at  night, 
I  missed  from  the  attic  next  door  to  him  the 
lamp  of  the  artist,  who  never  gets  up  until 
everybody  else  is  going  to  bed;  or  if,  at  any 
hour  I  looked  over,  people  were  not  playing 
cards  in  the  first-floor  windows  of  the  house 
painted  white,  or  frowzy  women  were  not 
leaning  out  of  the  little  garret  windows  above, 
or  the  type-writer  was  not  clicking  hard  in  the 
window  with  the  white  muslin  curtains  and 
the  pot  of  flowers,  or  the  manicurist  not  re- 
346 


The  Quarter 

ceiving  her  clients  behind  the  window  with 
the  staring,  new  yellow  blinds.  I  should  regret 
even  the  fiery,  hot-tempered,  little  woman  who 
jumps  up  out  of  the  attic  window  immediately 
below  us,  like  a  Jack-in-the-box,  and  shakes 
her  fist  at  us  every  time  Augustine  shakes 
those  unfortunate  rugs  which  are  perpetually 
getting  us  into  trouble  with  our  neighbours. 
I  should  think  the  picture  incomplete  if,  of 
an  evening,  the  diners  out  were  to  disappear 
from  behind  the  windows  of  the  big  hotel, 
though  nothing  makes  me  more  uncomfort- 
ably conscious  of  the  "strangely  mingled 
monster"  that  London  is,  than  the  contrast 
between  them  lingering  over  the  day's  fourth 
banquet,  and  the  long  black  "hunger  line" 
forming  of  a  winter  morning  just  beside  Cleo- 
patra's Needle  and  waiting  in  dreary  patience 
for  the  daily  dole  of  bread  and  soup. 

I  cannot  imagine  the  Quarter  without  actors 
and  actresses  in  possession  of  dozens  of  its 
windows,  the  attraction  to  them  less  the  asso- 
ciations with  Garrick  than  the  convenient 
proximity  to  the  principal  theatres;  or  with- 
out the  Societies,  Institutes,  Leagues,  Bureaus, 
347 


Our  House 

Companies,  Associations,  and  I  know  not 
what  else,  that  undertake  the  charge  of  every- 
thing under  the  sun,  from  ancient  buildings  to 
women's  freedom;  or  without  the  clubs,  where 
long-haired  men  and  Liberty-gowned  women 
meet  to  drink  tea  and  dabble  in  anarchy; 
where  more  serious  citizens  propose  to  re- 
fashion the  world  and  mankind,  and,  inci- 
dentally, British  politics;  where,  in  a  word, 
philanthropists  of  every  pattern  fill  the  very 
air  of  the  Quarter  with  reform,  until  my  escape 
from  degenerating  into  a  reformer  despite 
myself  seems  a  daily  miracle,  and  the  sham 
Bohemianism  of  the  one  club  willing  to  let 
the  rest  of  the  world  take  care  of  itself  be- 
comes almost  a  virtue. 

It  is  probably  the  seclusion,  the  cloistral 
repose,  of  the  Quarter  that  attracts  the  stu- 
dent and  the  scholar.  Up  at  my  windows,  the 
busy  bee  would  be  given  points  in  the  art  of 
improving  each  shining  hour.  In  every  direc- 
tion I  turn  I  am  so  edified  by  the  example  of 
hard  work  that  I  long  for  the  luxury  of  being 
shocked  by  idleness. 

Behind  the  window  I  look  down  into  at 
348 


The  Quarter 

right  angles  from  the  studio,  the  Scientist  in 
white  apron,  surrounded  by  bottles  and  retorts 
and  microscopes,  industriously  examines  germs 
from  morning  till  midnight,  oblivious  to  every- 
thing outside,  which  for  too  long  meant,  among 
other  things,  showers  of  soft  white  ashes  and 
evil  greasy  smoke  and  noxious  odours  sent  by 
the  germs  up  through  his  chimneys  into  our 
studio;  nor  could  the  polite  representations 
of  our  Agent  that  he  was  a  public  nuisance 
rouse  him  from  his  indifference,  since  he  knew 
that  the  smoke  was  not  black  enough  to  make 
him  one  technically.  It  was  only  when  J.  pro- 
tested, with  an  American  energy  effective  in 
England,  that  the  germs  ceased  to  trouble  us 
and  I  could  bear  unmoved  the  sight  of  the 
white-aproned  Scientist  behind  his  window. 

In  the  new  house  with  the  flat  roof  the 
Inventor  has  his  office,  and  I  am  sure  it  is  the 
great  man  himself  I  so  often  see  walking 
gravely  up  and  down  among  the  chimney- 
pots, evolving  and  planning  new  wireless 
wonders;  and  I  am  as  sure  that  the  solemn 
St.  Bernard  who  walks  there  too  is  his,  and, 
in  some  way  it  is  not  for  me  to  explain,  part 

349 


Our  House 

of  the  mysterious  machinery  connecting  the 
Quarter  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Plainly  visible  in  more  rooms  than  one, 
bending  over  high  drawing-tables  not  only 
through  the  day  but  on  into  the  night,  are 
many  Architects,  with  whom  the  Quarter  has 
ever  been  in  favour  since  the  masters  who 
designed  it  years  ago  made  their  headquarters 
in  our  street,  until  yesterday,  when  the  young 
man  who  is  building  the  Town  Hall  for  the 
County  Council  moved  into  it,  though,  had 
the  County  Council  had  its  way,  there  would 
be  no  Quarter  now  for  an  Architect  to  have 
his  office  in.  Architectural  distinction,  or 
picturesqueness,  awakes  in  the  London  official 
such  a  desire  to  be  rid  of  it  that,  but  for  the 
turning  of  the  worm  who  pays  the  rates,  our 
old  streets  and  Adam  houses  would  have  been 
pulled  down  to  make  place  for  the  brand-new 
municipal  building  which,  as  it  is,  has  been 
banished  out  of  harm's  way  to  the  other  side 
of  the  river. 

Busier  still  than  the  Architects  are  the  old 
men  who  live  in  the  two  ancient  houses  oppo- 
site mine,  where  the  yellow  brick  just  shows 

350 


The  Quarter 

here  and  there  through  the  centuries'  grime, 
and  where  windows  as  grimy  —  though  a 
clause  in  the  leases  of  the  Quarter  demands 
that  windows  should  be  washed  at  least  once 
a  month  —  open  upon  little  ironwork  balconies 
and  are  draped  with  draggled  lace-curtains, 
originally  white  but  now  black.  I  have  no 
idea  who  the  old  men  are,  or  what  is  the  task 
that  absorbs  them.  They  look  as  ancient  as  the 
houses  and  so-alike  that  I  could  not  believe 
there  were  three  of  them  if,  every  time  I  go 
to  my  dining-room  window,  I  did  not  see  them 
all  three  in  their  chambers,  two  on  the  third 
floor,  to  the  left  and  right  of  me,  one  on  the 
floor  below  about  halfway  between,  —  mak- 
ing, J.  says,  an  amusing  kind  of  pattern. 
Each  lives  alone,  each  has  a  little  table  drawn 
up  to  his  window,  and  there  they  sit  all  day 
long,  one  on  an  easy  leather  chair,  one  on 
a  stiff  cane-bottomed  chair,  one  on  a  hard 
wooden  stool,  —  that  is  the  only  difference. 
There  they  are  perpetually  sorting  and  sifting 
papers  from  which  nothing  tears  them  away; 
there  they  have  their  midday  chop  and  tank- 
ard of  bitter  served  to  them  as  they  work,  and 

35i 


Our  House 

there  they  snatch  a  few  hasty  minutes  after- 
wards to  read  the  day's  news.  They  never 
go  out  unless  it  is  furtively,  after  dark,  and 
I  have  never  failed  to  find  them  at  their 
post  except  occasionally  on  Sunday  morning, 
when  the  chairs  by  the  tables  are  filled  by 
their  clothes  instead  of  themselves,  because, 
I  fancy,  the  London  housekeeper,  who  leaves 
her  bed  reluctantly  every  day  in  the  week  but 
who  on  that  morning  is  not  to  be  routed  out  of 
it  at  all,  refuses  to  wake  them  or  to  bring  them 
their  breakfast.  They  may  be  solicitors,  but  I 
do  not  think  so;  they  may  be  literary  men,  but 
I  do  not  think  that  either;  and,  really,  I  should 
just  as  lief  not  be  told  who  and  what  they  are, 
so  much  more  in  keeping  is  mystery  with  the 
grimy  old  houses  where  their  old  days  are  spent 
in  endless  toiling  over  endless  tasks. 

If  the  three  old  men  are  not  authors,  plenty 
of  my  other  neighbours  are,  as  they  should  be 
out  of  compliment  to  Bacon  and  Pepys,  to  Gar- 
rick  and  Topham  Beauclerk,  to  Dr.  Johnson  and 
Boswell,  to  Rousseau  and  David  Copperfield, 
and  to  any  number  besides  who,  in  their  differ- 
ent days,  belonged  to  or  haunted  the  Quarter 

352 


The  Quarter 

and  made  it  a  world  of  memories  for  all  who 
came  after.  I  have  authors  on  every  side  of 
me:  not  Chattertons  undiscovered  in  their 
garrets,  but  celebrities  wallowing  in  success, 
some  of  whom  might  be  the  better  for  neglect. 
Many  a  young  enthusiast  comes  begging  for 
the  privilege  of  gazing  from  my  windows  into 
theirs.  I  have  been  assured  that  the  walls  of 
the  Quarter  will  not  hold  the  memorial  tablets 
which  we  of  the  present  generation  are  prepar- 
ing for  their  decoration.  The  "best  sellers"  are 
issued,  and  the  Repertory  Theatre  nourished, 
from  our  midst. 

The  clean-shaven  man  of  legal  aspect  who 
arrives  at  his  office  over  the  way  as  regularly 
as  the  clock  strikes  ten,  who  leaves  it  as  regu- 
larly at  one  for  his  lunch,  and  as  regularly  in 
the  late  afternoon  closes  up  for  the  day,  is  the 
Novelist  whose  novels  are  on  every  bookstall 
and  whose  greatness  is  measured  by  the  thou- 
sands and  hundreds  of  thousands  into  which 
they  run.  He  does  not  do  us  the  honour  of 
living  in  the  Quarter,  but  comes  to  it  simply  in 
office  hours,  and  is  as  scrupulously  punctual  as 
if  his  business  were  with  briefs  rather  than  with 

353 


Our  House 

dainty  trifles  lighter  than  the  lightest  froth. 
No  clerk  could  be  more  exact  in  his  habits. 
Anthony  Trollope  was  not  more  methodical. 
This  admirable  precision  might  cost  him  the 
illusions  of  his  admirers,  but  to  me  it  is  invalu- 
able. For  when  the  wind  is  in  the  wrong  di- 
rection and  I  cannot  hear  Big  Ben,  or  the  fog 
falls  and  I  cannot  see  St.  Martin's  spire,  I  have 
only  to  watch  for  him  to  know  the  hour,  and  in 
a  household  where  no  two  clocks  or  watches 
agree  as  to  time,  the  convenience  is  not  to  be 
exaggerated. 

My  neighbour  from  the  house  on  the  river- 
front, next  to  Peter  the  Great's,  who  often 
drops  in  for  a  talk  and  whom  Augustine  an- 
nounces as  le  Monsieur  du  Quartier,  is  the 
American  Dramatist,  author  of  the  play  that 
was  the  most  popular  of  the  season  last  year  in 
New  York.  I  should  explain,  perhaps,  that 
Augustine  has  her  own  names  for  my  friends, 
and  that  usually  her  announcements  require 
interpretation.  For  instance,  few  people  would 
recognize  my  distinguished  countryman,  the 
Painter,  in  le  Monsieur  de  la  Dame  qui  ne 
monte  jamais  les  escaliers,  or  the  delightful 

354 


The  Quarter 

Lady  Novelist  in  la  Demoiselle  aux  chats •,  or  — 
it  is  wiser  not  to  say  whom  in  le  Monsieur  qui 
se  gobe.  But  I  have  come  to  understand  even 
her  fine  shades,  and  when  she  announces 
les  Gens  du  Quartier,  then  I  know  it  is  not  the 
American  Dramatist,  but  the  British  Publicist 
and  his  wife  who  live  in  Garrick's  house,  and 
who  add  to  their  distinction  by  dining  in  the 
room  where  Garrick  died. 

The  red  curtains  a  little  further  down  the 
street  belong  to  the  enterprising  Pole,  who, 
from  his  chambers  in  the  Quarter,  edits  the 
Polish  Punch,  a  feat  which  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  though  I  have  never  seen  the  paper, 
must  be  the  most  comic  thing  about  it.  In  the 
house  on  one  side,  the  author  who  is  England's 
most  distinguished  Man  of  Letters  to-day,  and 
who  has  become  great  as  a  novelist,  began  life 
as  an  architect.  From  the  house  on  the  other 
side,  the  Poet-Patriot-Novelist  of  the  Empire 
fired,  or  tried  to  fire,  the  Little  Englanders  with 
his  own  blustering,  knock-you-down  Imperial- 
ism, and  bullied  and  flattered  them,  amused 
and  abused  them,  called  them  names  they 
would  not  have  forgiven  from  any  other  man 

355 


Our  House 

living  and  could  not  easily  swallow  from  him, 
and  was  all  the  while  himself  so  simple  and 
unassuming  that  next  to  nobody  knew  he  was 
in  the  Quarter  until  he  left  it.  The  British 
Dramatist  close  by,  who  conquers  the  heart  of 
the  sentimental  British  public  by  sentiment, 
is  just  as  unassuming.  He  is  rarely  without  a 
play  on  the  London  stage,  rarely  without  sev- 
eral on  tour.  He  could  probably  buy  out  every- 
body in  the  Quarter,  except  perhaps  the  So- 
cialist, and  he  can  lose  a  little  matter  of  sixteen 
thousand  pounds  or  so  and  never  miss  it.  But 
so  seldom  is  he  seen  that  you  might  think  he 
was  afraid  to  show  himself.  "You'd  never 
know  'e  was  in  the  'ouse,  'e's  that  quiet  like. 
Why,  'e  never  gives  no  trouble  to  nobody,"  the 
Housekeeper  has  confided  to  me.  He  shrinks 
from  putting  his  name  on  his  front  door, 
though  by  this  time  he  must  be  used  to  its 
staring  at  him  in  huge  letters  from  posters  and 
playbills  all  over  the  world.  Perhaps  it  is  to 
give  himself  courage  that  he  keeps  a  dog  who 
is  as  forward  as  his  master  is  retiring,  and  who 
is  my  terror.  I  am  on  speaking  terms  with 
most  of  the  dogs  of  the  Quarter,  but  with  the 

356 


The  Quarter 

Dramatist's  I  have  never  ventured  to  exchange 
a  greeting.  I  happened  to  mention  my  instinc- 
tive distrust,  one  day,  to  a  friend  who  has 
made  the  dog's  personal  acquaintance. 

"He  eats  kids!"  was  my  friend's  comment. 
Then  he  added:  "You  have  seen  dozens  of 
children  go  up  to  the  Dramatist's  room, 
have  n't  you?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  for  it  was  a  fact. 

"Well,  and  have  you  ever  seen  one  come 
down  again?"  And  if  you  will  believe  it,  I 
never  have. 

A  door  or  so  from  the  Dramatist,  but  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street,  the  Socialist's  win- 
dows face  mine.  I  cannot,  with  any  respect  for 
truth,  call  him  unassuming;  modesty  is  not  his 
vice.  It  is  not  his  ambition  to  hide  his  light 
under  a  bushel, —  or  rather  a  hogshead;  on  the 
contrary,  as  he  would  be  the  first  to  admit,  it 
could  not  flare  on  too  many  housetops  to  please 
him.  When  I  first  met  him,  years  before  we 
again  met  in  the  Quarter,  the  world  had  not 
heard  of  him,  but  he  was  quite  frank  in  his  de- 
termination that  it  should,  though  to  make  it 
hear,  he  would  have  to  play  a  continuous  solo 

357 


Our  House 

on  his  own  cornet,  until  he  impressed  some- 
body else  with  the  necessity  of  blowing  it  for 
him.  Besides,  he  has  probably  never  found 
other  people  as  entertaining  as  himself,  which 
is  an  excellent  reason  why  he  should  not  keep 
himself  out  of  his  talk  and  his  writing,  —  and  he 
is  talking  and  writing  all  the  time.  His  is  a  fa- 
miliar voice  among  the  Fabians,  on  public  plat- 
forms, and  at  private  meetings,  and  for  a  very 
little  while  it  was  listened  to  by  bewildered 
Borough  Councillors.  He  has  as  many  plays  to 
his  credit  as  the  British  Dramatist,  as  many 
books  as  the  Novelist,  and  I  recall  no  other 
writer  who  can  equal  him  in  the  number  and 
length  of  his  letters  to  the  press.  As  he  courts, 
rather  than  evades,  notice,  I  doubt  if  he  would 
be  embarrassed  to  learn  how  repeatedly  I  see 
him  doing  his  hair  and  beard  in  the  morning 
and  putting  out  his  lights  at  night,  or  how 
entirely  I  am  in  his  confidence  as  to  the  fre- 
quency of  his  luncheon  parties  and  the  number 
of  his  guests.  Were  I  not  the  soul  of  discretion 
I  could  publish  his  daily  menu  to  the  world,  for 
his  kitchen  opens  itself  so  aggressively  to  my 
view  that  I  see  into  it  as  often  as  into  my  own. 

358 


The  Quarter 

For  that  matter,  I  have  under  my  inspection 
half  the  kitchens  in  the  Quarter,  and  the  things 
I  witness  in  them  might  surprise  or  horrify 
more  than  one  woman  who  imagines  herself 
mistress  in  her  own  house.  I  have  assisted  at 
the  reception  of  guests  she  never  invited;  I 
understand,  if  she  does  not,  why  her  gas  and 
electric-light  bills  reach  such  fabulous  figures; 
I  could  tell  her  what  happens  when  her  motor- 
car disappears  round  the  corner,  —  for,  seedy 
and  down-at-heel  as  the  Quarter  may  appear, 
the  private  motor  is  by  no  means  the  excep- 
tion among  the  natives.  Only  the  other  day, 
when  the  literary  family,  who  are  as  unsus- 
picious as  they  are  fond  of  speed,  started  in 
their  motor  for  the  week-end,  they  could  have 
got  no  further  than  the  suburbs  before  the 
cloth  was  laid  in  their  dining-room,  their  best 
china,  silver,  and  glass  brought  out,  flowers, 
bottles,  and  siphons  in  place,  and  their  cook 
at  the  head  of  their  table  "entertaining  her 
friends  to  luncheon."  The  party  were  linger- 
ing over  the  fruit  when  suddenly  a  motor-horn 
was  heard  in  the  street.  There  was  a  look  of 
horror  on  all  their  faces,  one  short  second 

359 


Our  House 

of  hesitation,  and  then  a  wild  leap  from  the 
table,  and,  in  a  flash,  flowers,  bottles,  and 
siphons,  china,  glass,  and  silver  were  spirited 
away,  the  cloth  whisked  off,  chairs  set  against 
the  wall.  As  the  dining-room  door  closed  on 
the  flying  skirt  of  the  last  guest,  the  cook 
looked  out  of  the  window,  the  horn  sounded 
again,  and  the  motor  was  round  the  corner 
in  the  next  street,  for  it  was  somebody  else's, 
and  the  literary  family  did  not  return  until 
Monday. 

The  Socialist,  who  deals  in  paradox  and  the 
inconsequent,  also  has  his  own  car.  Now  that 
Socialism  is  knocking  at  our  doors,  the  car 
tooting  at  his,  come  to  fetch  him  from  his 
town  house  to  his  country  house  or  off  to  the 
uttermost  ends  of  the  earth,  toots  reassurance 
into  our  hearts.  Under  such  conditions  we 
should  not  mind  being  Socialists  ourselves. 
However,  he  does  make  one  protest  against 
Individualism  in  which  I  should  not  care  to 
join  him,  for  he  goes  shares  in  his  personality 
and  has  perpetrated  a  double  in  the  Quarter, — 
a  long  lean  man,  with  grizzled  red  hair  and 
beard,  who  is  clothed  in  brown  Jaegers,  whose 

360 


The  Quarter 

face  has  the  pallor  of  the  vegetarian,  and  who 
warns  us  of  the  manner  of  equality  we  may 
expect  under  the  Socialist's  regime.  I  dread  to 
think  of  the  complications  there  might  be  were 
the  double  not  so  considerate  as  to  carry  a 
black  bag  and  wear  knee-breeches.  A  glance 
at  hands  and  legs  enables  us  to  distinguish 
one  from  the  other  and  to  spare  both  the  in- 
convenience of  a  mistaken  identity.  The  dou- 
ble, like  the  old  men  opposite,  remains  one 
of  the  mysteries  of  the  Quarter.  Nobody  can 
explain  his  presence  in  our  midst,  nobody  has 
ever  spoken  to  him,  nobody  can  say  where 
he  comes  from  with  his  black  bag  in  the  morn- 
ing, where  he  goes  with  it  in  the  evening,  or 
even  where  he  stops  in  the  Quarter.  I  doubt 
if  the  Socialist  has  yet,  like  the  lovers  in 
Rossetti's  picture,  met  himself,  for  surely  no 
amount  of  Socialism  could  bear  the  shock  of 
the  revelation  that  must  come  with  the  meet- 
ing. 

If  many  books  are  written  in  the  Quarter, 
more  are  published  from  it,  and  the  number 
increases  at  a  rate  that  is  fast  turning  it  into 
a  new  Paternoster  Row.  I  am  surrounded  by 

361 


Our  House 

publishers:  publishers  who  are  unknown  out- 
side our  precincts,  and  publishers  who  are 
unknown  in  them  save  for  the  names  on  their 
signs;  publishers  who  issue  limited  editions 
for  the  few,  and  publishers  who  apparently 
publish  for  nobody  but  themselves;  and, 
just  where  I  can  keep  an  eye  on  his  front  door, 
the  Publisher,  my  friend,  who  makes  the 
Quarter  a  centre  of  travel  and  a  household 
word  wherever  books  are  read,  and  uses  his 
house  as  a  training-school  for  young  genius. 
More  than  one  lion  now  roaring  in  London 
served  an  apprenticeship  there;  even  Mr. 
Chatteron  passed  through  it;  and  I  am  always 
encountering  minor  poets  or  budding  philos- 
ophers going  in  or  coming  out,  ostensibly  on 
the  Publisher's  affairs,  but  really  busy  carry- 
ing on  the  Quarter's  traditions  and  preparing 
more  memorial  tablets  for  its  overladen  walls. 
The  Publisher  and  his  wife  live  a  few  doors 
away,  where  they  are  generously  accumulating 
fresh  associations  and  memories  for  our  suc- 
cessors in  the  Quarter.  To  keep  open  house 
for  the  literary  men  and  women  of  the  time 
is  a  fashion  among  publishers  that  did  not  go 


The  Quarter 

out  with  the  Dillys  and  the  Dodsleys,  and  an 
occasional  Boswell  would  find  a  note-book 
handy  behind  the  windows  that  open  upon  the 
river  from  the  Publisher's  chambers. 

Associations  are  being  accumulated  also  by 
the  New  York  Publisher,  who,  accompanied 
by  his  son,  the  Young  Publisher,  and  by  his 
birds,  arrives  every  year  with  the  first  breath 
of  spring.  It  is  chiefly  to  artists  that  his  house 
is  open,  though  he  gives  the  literary  hallmark 
to  the  legacy  of  memories  he  will  leave  to  the 
Quarter.  I  cannot  understand  why  the  artist, 
to  whom  our  streets  and  our  houses  make  a 
more  eloquent  appeal  than  to  the  author,  has 
seldom  been  attracted  to  them  since  the  days 
when  Barry  designed  his  decorations  in  the 
"grand  manner"  for  our  oldest  Society's 
lecture-hall,  and  Angelica  Kauffmann  painted 
the  ceiling  in  Peter  the  Great's  house,  or  since 
the  later  days  when  Etty  and  Stanfield  lived 
in  our  house.  Now  and  then  I  come  across 
somebody  sketching  our  old  Watergate  or  our 
shabby  little  shops  and  corners,  but  only  the 
youth  in  the  attic  below  has  followed  the  ex- 
ample given  by  J.,  whose  studio  continues  the 

363 


exception  in  the  Quarter:  the  show-place  it 
ought  to  be  for  the  beauty  of  river  and  sky 
framed  in  by  the  windows. 

But  to  make  up  for  this  neglect,  as  long  a 
succession  of  artists  as  used  to  climb  to  Etty's 
chambers  visit  the  New  York  Publisher  in  the 
quiet  rooms  with  the  prints  on  the  walls  and 
the  windows  that,  for  greater  quiet,  look  away 
from  our  quiet  streets  and  out  upon  our  quieter 
backs  and  gables.  Much  good  talk  is  heard 
there,  and  many  good  stories,  and  by  no  means 
the  least  good  from  the  New  York  Publisher 
himself.  It  is  strange  that,  loving  quiet  as  he 
does,  he  should,  after  the  British  Dramatist, 
have  contributed  more  to  my  disquiet  than 
anybody  in  the  Quarter:  a  confession  for 
which  I  know  he  will  think  I  merit  his  scorn. 
But  the  birds  it  is  his  fancy  to  travel  with  are 
monsters  compared  to  the  sparrows  and 
pigeons  who  build  their  nests  in  the  peaceful 
trees  of  the  Quarter,  and  I  am  never  at  ease 
in  their  company.  I  still  tremble  when  I  recall 
the  cold  critical  eye  and  threatening  beak  of 
his  favourite  magpie,  nor  can  I  think  calmly 
of  his  raven  whom,  in  an  access  of  mistaken 

364 


The  Quarter 

hospitality,  I  once  invited  to  call  with  him 
upon  William  Penn.  William  had  never  seen 
a  live  bird  so  near  him  in  his  all  too  short  life, 
and  what  with  his  surprise  and  curiosity,  his 
terror  and  sporting  instincts,  he  was  so  wrought 
up  and  his  nerves  in  such  a  state  that,  al- 
though the  raven  was  shut  up  safe  in  a  cage, 
I  was  half  afraid  he  would  not  survive  the 
visit.  I  have  heard  the  New  York  Publisher 
say  of  William,  in  his  less  nervous  and  more 
normal  moments,  that  he  was  not  a  cat  but 
a  demon;  the  raven,  in  my  opinion,  was  not 
exactly  an  angel.  But  thanks  to  the  quality 
of  our  friendship,  it  also  survived  the  visit  and, 
in  spite  of  monstrous  birds,  strengthens  with 
the  years. 

It  is  not  solely  from  my  windows  that  I  have 
got  to  know  the  Quarter.  Into  my  Camelot  I 
can  not  only  look,  but  come  down,  without  webs 
flying  out  and  mirrors  cracking,  and  better 
still,  I  might  never  stir  beyond  its  limits,  and 
my  daily  life  and  domestic  arrangements 
would  suffer  no  inconvenience.  The  Quar- 
ter is  as  "self-contained"  as  the  flats  adver- 
tised by  our  zealous  Agent  who  manages  it. 

365 


Our  House 

Every  necessity  and  many  luxuries  into  the 
bargain  are  to  be  had  within  its  boundaries. 
It  may  resemble  the  Inns  of  Court  in  other 
ways,  but  it  does  not,  as  they  do,  encourage 
snobbishness  by  placing  a  taboo  upon  the 
tradesman.  We  have  our  own  dairy,  our  own 
green-grocer,  our  own  butcher,  though  out  of 
sympathy  with  Augustine  I  do  my  marketing 
in  Soho.  At  one  corner  our  tobacconist  keeps 
his  shop,  at  another  our  tailor.  If  my  drains 
go  wrong  I  call  in  the  local  plumber;  when 
I  want  a  shelf  put  up  or  something  mended  I 
send  for  the  local  carpenter;  I  could  summon 
the  local  builder  were  I  inclined  to  make  a 
present  of  alterations  or  additions  to  the  local 
landlord.  I  but  step  across  the  street  if  I  am 
in  need  of  a  Commissioner  of  Oaths.  I  go  no 
further  to  get  my  type-writing  done.  Were  my 
daily  paper  to  fail  me,  the  local  gossip  of  the 
Quarter  would  allow  me  no  excuse  to  complain 
of  dearth  of  news ;  the  benevolent  would  exult 
in  the  opportunity  provided  for  benevolence 
by  our  slums  where  the  flower-girls  live;  the 
energetic  could  walk  off  their  energy  in  our 
garden  where  the  County  Council's  band  plays 

366 


The  Quarter 

on  summer  evenings.  There  is  a  public  for 
our  loungers,  and  for  our  friends  a  hotel,  — 
the  house  below  the  hill  with  the  dingy  yellow 
walls  that  are  so  shiny-white  as  I  see  them  by 
night,  kept  from  time  immemorial  by  Miss 
Brown,  where  the  lodger  still  lights  himself  to 
bed  by  a  candle  and  still  eats  his  meals  in  a 
Coffee  Room,  and  where  Labour  Members  of 
Parliament,  and  South  Kensington  officials, 
and  people  never  to  be  suspected  of  having 
discovered  the  Quarter,  are  the  most  frequent 
guests. 

The  Quarter  has  also  its  own  population, 
so  distinct  from  other  Londoners  that  I  am 
struck  by  the  difference  no  further  away  than 
the  other  side  of  the  Strand.  Our  housekeepers 
are  a  species  apart,  so  are  our  milkmen  behind 
their  little  carts.  Our  types  are  a  local  growth. 
Nowhere  else  in  London  could  I  meet  anybody 
in  the  slightest  like  the  pink-eyed,  white- 
haired,  dried-up  little  old  man,  with  a  jug  in 
his  hand,  whom  I  see  daily  on  his  way  to  or 
from  our  public-house;  or  like  the  middle-aged 
dandy  who  stares  me  out  of  countenance  as  he 
saunters  homeward  in  the  afternoon,  a  lily  or 

367 


Our  House 

chrysanthemum,  according  to  the  season,  in 
one  hand  and  a  brown  paper  bag  of  buns  in 
the  other;  or  like  the  splendid  old  man  of 
military  bearing,  with  well-waxed  moustache 
and  well-pointed  beard,  whose  Panama  hat  in 
summer  and  fur-lined  cloak  in  winter  have 
become  as  much  fixtures  in  the  Quarter  as  our 
Adam  houses  or  our  view  of  the  river,  and  who 
spends  his  days  patrolling  the  Terrace  in  front 
of  our  frivolous  club  or  going  into  it  with 
members  he  happens  to  overtake  at  the  front 
door,  —  where  his  nights  are  spent  no  native 
of  the  Quarter  can  say.  Nor  is  any  other 
crowd  like  our  crowd  that  collects  every  Sun- 
day evening  as  St.  Martin's  bells  begin  to  ring 
for  evening  service,  that  grows  larger  and 
larger  until  streets  usually  empty  are  packed 
solid,  and  that  melts  away  again  before  ten. 
It  is  made  up  mostly  of  youths  to  whom  the 
cap  is  as  indispensable  a  symbol  of  class  as  the 
silk  hat  further  west,  and  young  girls  who  run 
to  elaborate  hair  and  feathers.  They  have  their 
conventions,  which  are  strictly  observed.  One 
is  to  walk  with  arms  linked;  a  second,  to  fill 
the  roadway  as  well  as  the  pavement,  to  the 

368 


The  Quarter 

despair  of  taxicabs  and  cycles  endeavouring 
to  toot  and  ring  a  passage  through;  a  third, 
to  follow  the  streets  that  bound  the  Quarter 
on  three  sides  and  never  to  trespass  into 
others.  How  the  custom  originated,  I  leave  it 
to  the  historian  to  decide.  It  may  go  back  to 
the  Britons  who  painted  themselves  blue,  it 
may  be  no  older  than  the  Romans.  All  I  know 
with  certainty  is  that  the  Sunday  evening 
walk  is  a  ceremony  of  no  less  obligation  for 
the  Quarter  than  the  Sunday  morning  parade 
in  the  Row  is  for  Mayfair. 

We  are  of  accord  in  the  Quarter  on  the  sub- 
ject of  its  charm  and  the  advantage  of  preserv- 
ing it,  —  though  on  all  others  we  may  and 
do  disagree  absolutely  and  continually  fight. 
I  have  heard  even  our  postman  brag  of  the 
beauty  of  its  architecture  and  the  fame  of  the 
architects  who  built  it  more  than  a  century 
and  a  half  ago,  and  I  do  not  believe  as  a  rule 
that  London  postmen  could  say  who  built  the 
houses  where  they  deliver  their  letters,  or  that 
it  would  occur  to  them  to  pose  as  judges  of 
architecture.  Because  we  love  the  Quarter  we 
watch  over  it  with  unceasing  vigilance.  We 

369 


Our  House 

are  always  on  the  look-out  for  nuisances  and 
alert  to  suppress  them.  In  fact,  if  not  in 
name,  we  constitute  a  sort  of  League  for  the 
Prevention  of  Dirt  and  Disorder  in  the  Quarter. 
There  is  a  distinct  understanding  that,  in  an 
emergency,  we  may  rely  upon  one  another  for 
mutual  support,  which  is  the  easier  as  we  all 
have  the  same  Landlord  and  can  make  the 
same  Agent's  life  a  martyrdom  until  the  evil 
is  remedied.  The  one  thing  we  guard  most 
zealously  is  the  quiet,  the  calm,  conducive  to 
work.  We  wage  war  to  the  death  against 
street  noises  of  every  kind.  No  "German 
Band"  would  invade  our  silent  precincts. 
The  hurdy-gurdy  is  anathema, — I  have  always 
thought  the  Suffragettes'  attempt  to  play  it 
through  our  streets  their  bravest  deed.  If  we 
endure  the  bell  of  the  muffin  man  on  Sunday 
and  the  song  of  the  man  who  wants  us  to  buy 
his  blooming  lavender,  it  is  because  both  have 
the  sanction  of  age.  We  make  no  other  con- 
cession, and  our  severity  extends  to  the  native 
no  less  than  to  the  alien.  When,  in  the  strip 
of  green  and  gravel  below  my  windows,  the 
members  of  our  frivolous  Club  took  to  shoot- 

370 


The  Quarter 

ing  themselves  with  blank  cartridges  in  the 
intervals  of  fencing,  though  the  noise  was  on 
the  miniature  scale  of  their  pistols,  we  over- 
whelmed the  unfortunate  Agent  with  letters 
until  a  stop  was  put  to  it.  When  our  Terri- 
torials, in  their  first  ardour,  chose  our  cata- 
combs for  their  evening  bugle -practice,  we 
rose  as  one  against  them.  Beggars,  unless 
they  ring  boldly  at  our  front  doors  and  pre- 
tend to  be  something  else,  must  give  up  hope 
when  they  enter  the  Quarter.  For  if  the 
philosopher  thinks  angels  and  men  are  in  no 
danger  from  charity,  we  do  not,  and  least  of 
all  the  lady  opposite,  to  whom  almsgiving  in 
our  street  is  as  intolerable  as  donkeys  on  the 
green  were  to  Betsy  Trotwood.  One  of  my 
friends  has  never  dared  to  come  to  see  me, 
except  by  stealth,  since  the  day  she  pounced 
upon  him  to  ask  him  what  he  meant  by  such 
an  exhibition  of  immorality,  when  all  he  had 
done  was  to  drop  a  penny  into  the  hand  of 
a  small  boy  at  his  cab-door,  and  all  he  had 
meant  was  a  kindly  fellow  feeling,  having 
once  been  a  small  boy  himself. 
We  defend  the  beauty  of  the  Quarter  with 
371 


equal  zeal.  We  do  what  we  can  to  preserve 
the  superannuated  look  which  to  us  is  a  large 
part  of  its  charm,  and  we  cry  out  against  every 
new  house  that  threatens  discord  in  our 
ancient  harmony.  Excitement  never  raged  so 
high  among  us  as  when  the  opposite  river 
banks  were  desecrated  by  the  advertiser,  and 
from  shores  hitherto  but  a  shadow  in  the 
shadowy  night,  there  flamed  forth  a  horrid 
tout  for  Tea.  We  had  endured  much  from  a 
sign  of  Whiskey  further  down  the  river,  — 
Whiskey  and  Tea  are  Britain's  bulwarks,  — 
but  this  was  worse,  for  it  flared  and  glared 
right  into  our  faces,  and  the  vile  letters  which 
were  red  and  green  one  second  and  yellow 
the  next  ran  in  a  long  line  from  top  to  bottom 
of  the  high  shot-tower.  In  this  crude  light, 
our  breweries  ceased  to  be  palaces  in  the  night, 
our  campanili  again  became  chimneys.  Gone 
was  our  Fairyland,  gone  our  River  of  Dreams. 
The  falling  twilight  gave  a  hideous  jog  to  our 
memory,  and  would  not  let  us  forget  that  we 
lived  in  a  nation  of  shopkeepers.  The  Social- 
ist, part  of  whose  stock-in-trade  is  perver- 
sity, liked  it,  or  said  he  did,  —  and  I  really 

372 


The  Quarter 

believe  he  did,  —  but  the  other  tenants  were 
outraged,  and  an  indignation  meeting  was 
called.  Four  attended,  together  with  the  Solici- 
tor and  the  Agent  of  the  estate,  and  the  Pub- 
lisher, who  took  the  chair.  It  was  of  no  use. 
We  learned  that  our  joy  in  the  miracle  of  night 
might  be  destroyed  forever,  but  if  we  could 
prove  no  physical  harm,  legal  redress  would 
be  denied  to  us,  and  our  defiance  of  the  Vandal 
must  be  in  vain.  And  so  there  the  disgraceful 
advertisement  remains,  flaring  and  glaring  de- 
fiance at  us  across  the  river.  When  the  Social- 
ist gets  tired  of  it,  he  goes  off  to  his  country 
place  in  his  forty-horse-power  motor-car,  but 
we,  in  our  weariness,  can  escape  only  to  bed. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


••'  I   I    II    II  I    II  I  II       II 

A     000120015    3 


